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KIPPS

THE STORY OF A SIMPLE SOUL

Books by H. G. Wells

SHORT STORIES

Twelve Stories and a Dream

The Plattner Story and Others

Tales of Space and Time

The Stolen Bacillus and Other Stories

ROMANCES

The Food of the Gods

The Wonderful Visit

The War of the Worlds

The Invi sibleMan

The Time Machine

The First Men in the Moon

The Sea Lady

The Island of Dr. Moreau

NOVELS

Kipps

Love and Mr. Lew^isham

The Wheels of Chance

SOCIOLOGICAL ESSAYS

A Modern Utopia

Anticipations

Mankind in the Making.

KI PPS

THE STORY OF A SIMPLE SOUL

BY

H. G. WELLS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1906

PR

1777

OOPnwGHT 1906, BT

CHARLES SCRIBNBK'S SONM

PUBUSHED, 19M

alia Plater

' Those individuals who have led secluded or isolated lives, or have
hitherto moved in other spheres than those wherein well-bred
people move, will gather all the information necessary from
these pages to render them thoroughly conversant with the
manners and amenities of society."

Manners and Rules of Good Society

Bd a Member a/ the Aristocracy

CONTENTS :
Book I.

The Making of Kipps

PAGE

I. The Little Shop at New Romney 3

II. The Emporium 2^

III. The Wood-Carving Class 64

IV. Chitterlow 88

V. "Swapped" 117

VI. The Unexpected 128

Book II.
Mr. Coote, the Chaperon

I. The New Conditions 169

I I . The Walshinghams 201

III. Engaged 218

IV. The Bicycle Manufacturer 245

V. The Pupil Lover 259

VI. Discords 282

VII. London 309

VIII. Kipps Enters Society 354

IX. The Labyrinthodon 380

Book III.

KiPPSES

I. The Housing Problem. 395

II. The Callers 424

III. Terminations , 443

BOOK I
THE MAKING OF KIPPS

CHAPTER I

THE LITTLE SHOP AT NEW ROMNEY

Until he was nearly arrived at adolescence it did
not become clear to Kipps how it was that he was
under the care of an aunt and uncle instead of having
a father and mother like other boys. Yet he had
vague memories of a somewhere else that was not
New Romney — of a dim room, a window looking
down on white buildings — and of a some one else who
talked to forgotten people, and who was his mother.
He could not recall her features very distinctly, but
he remembered with extreme definition a white dress
she wore, with a pattern of little sprigs of flowers and
little bows of ribbon upon it, and a girdle of straight-
ribbed white ribbon about the waist. Linked with
this, he knew not how, were clouded half-obliterated
recollections of scenes in which there was weeping,
weeping in which he was inscrutably moved to join.
Some terrible tall man with a loud voice played a part
in these scenes, and either before or after them there
were impressions of looking for interminable periods
out of the windows of railway trains in the company
of these two people. . . .

3

4 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

He knew, though he could not remember that he
had ever been told, that a certain faded, wistful face,
that looked at him from a plush and gilt framed
daguerreotype above the mantel of the "sitting-
room," was the face of his mother. But that knowl-
edge did not touch his dim memories with any elucida-
tion. In that photograph she was a girlish figure,
leaning against a photographer's stile, and with all
the self-conscious shrinking natural to that position.
She had curly hair and a face far younger and prettier
than any other mother in his experience. She swung
a Dolly Varden hat by the string, and looked with
obedient respectful eyes on the photographer-gentle-
man who had commanded the pose. She was very
slight and pretty. But the phantom mother that
haunted his memory so elusively was not like that,
though he could not remember how she differed. Per-
haps she was older, or a little less shrinking, or, it
may be, only dressed in a different way.

It is clear she handed him over to his aunt and
uncle at New Romney with explicit directions and a
certain endowment. One gathers she had something
of that fine sense of social distinctions that subse-
quently played so large a part in Kipps' career. He
was not to go to a "common" school, she provided,
but to a certain seminary in Hastings that was not
only a "middle-class academy," with mortar boards
and every evidence of a higher social tone, but also
remarkably cheap. She seems to have been animated
by the desire to do her best for Kipps, even at a cer-

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 5

tain sacrifice of herself, as though Kipps were in some
way a superior sort of person. She sent poclcet-money
to him from time to time for a year or more after
Hastings had begun for him, but her face he never
saw in the days of his lucid memory.

His aunt and uncle were already high on the hill of
life when first he came to them. They had married
for comfort in the evening or at any rate in the late
afternoon of their days. They were at first no more
than vague figures in the background of proximate
realities, such realities as familiar chairs and tables,
quiet to ride and drive, the newel of the staircase,
kitchen furniture, pieces of firewood, the boiler tap,
old newspapers, the cat, the High Street, the back
yard and the flat fields that are always so near in that
little town. He knew all the stones in the yard indi-
vidually, the creeper in the corner, the dustbin and the
mossy wall, better than many men know the faces of
their wives. There was a corner under the ironing-
board which by means of a shawl could, under pro-
pitious gods, be made a very decent cubby-house, a
corner that served him for several years as the indis-
putable hub of the world; and the stringy places in
the carpet, the knots upon the dresser, and the several
corners of the rag hearthrug his uncle had made, be-
came essential parts of his mental foundations. The
shop he did not know so thoroughly — it was a for-
bidden region to him; yet somehow he managed to
know it very well.

His aunt and uncle were, as it were, the immediate

'6 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

gods of this world; and, like the gods of the world of
old, occasionally descended right into it, with arbi-
trary injunctions and disproportionate punishments.
And, unhappily, one rose to their Olympian level at
meals. Then one had to say one's "grace," hold one's
spoon and fork in mad, unnatural ways called "prop-
erly," and refrain from eating even nice sweet things
"too fast." If he "gobbled" there was trouble, and
at the slightest abandon with knife, fork, and spoon,
his aunt rapped his knuckles, albeit his uncle always
finished up his gravy with his knife. Sometimes,
moreover, his uncle would come, pipe in hand, out
of a sedentary remoteness in the most disconcerting
way, when a little boy was doing the most natural
and attractive things, with "Drat and drabbit that
young rascal! What's he a-doing of now?" And
his aunt would appear at door or window to interrupt
interesting conversation with children who were upon
unknown grounds considered "low" and undesirable,
and call him in. The pleasantest little noises, how-
ever softly you did them, — drumming on tea-trays,
trumpeting your fists, whistling on keys, ringing
chimes with a couple of pails, or playing tunes on the
window-panes, — brought down the gods in anger.
Yet what noise is fainter than your finger on the win-
dow— gently done ? Sometimes, however, these gods
gave him broken toys out of the shop, and then one
loved them better — for the shop they kept was,
among other things, a toy shop. (The other things
included books to read and books to give away and

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 7

local photographs ; it had some pretensions also to be
a china shop, and the fascia spoke of glass; it was also
a stationer's shop with a touch of haberdashery about
it, and in the windows and odd corners were mats and
terra-cotta dishes, and mllking-stools for painting;
and there was a hint of picture-frames, and fire-
screens, and fishing tackle, and air-guns, and bathing
suits, and tents : various things, indeed, but all cruelly
attractive to a small boy's fingers.) Once his aunt
gave him a trumpet if he would promise faithfully not
to blow it, and afterwards took it away again. And
his aunt made him say his Catechism and something
she certainly called the "Colic for the Day" every
Sunday in the year.

As the two grew old while he grew up, and as his
impression of them modified insensibly from year to
year, it seemed to him at last that they had always
been as they were when, in his adolescent days, his
impression of things grew fixed. His aunt he thought
of as always lean, rather worried-looking, and prone
to a certain obliquity of cap, and his uncle massive,
many-chinned, and careless about his buttons. They
neither visited nor received visitors. They were al-
ways very suspicious about their neighbours and other
people generally; they feared the "low" and they
hated and despised the "stuck-up," and so they "kept
themselves to themselves," according to the English
ideal. Consequently little Kipps had no playmates,
except through the sin of disobedience. By inherent
nature he had a sociable disposition. When he was

8 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

in the High Street he made a point of saying "Hel-
lo!" to passing cyclists, and he would put his tongue
out at the Quodling children whenever their nurse-
maid was not looking. And he began a friendship
with Sid Pornick, the son of the haberdasher next
door, that, with wide intermissions, was destined to
last his lifetime through.

Pornick, the haberdasher, I may say at once, was,
according to old Kipps, a "blaring jackass"; he was
a teetotaller, a "nyar, nyar, 'im-singing Methodis',"
and altogether distasteful and detrimental, he and his
together, to true Kipps ideals, so far as little Kipps
could gather them. This Pornick certainly possessed
an enormous voice, and he annoyed old Kipps greatly
by calling, "You — Arn" and "Siddee," up and down
his house. He annoyed old Kipps by private choral
services on Sunday, all his family "nyar, nyar-ing" ;
and by mushroom culture; by behaving as though the
pilaster between the two shops was common property;
by making a noise of hammering in the af*-ernoon,
when old Kipps wanted to be quiet after his midday
meal; by going up and down uncarpeted stairs in his
boots; by having a black beard; by attempting to be
friendly; and by — all that sort of thing. In fact, he
annoyed old Kipps. He annoyed him especially with
his shop doormat. Old Kipps never beat his mat.
preferring to let sleeping dust lie; and, seeking a mo-
tive for a foolish proceeding, he held that Pornick
waited until there was a suitable wind in order that
the dust disengaged in that operation might defile his

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 9

neighbour's shop. These issues would frequently de-
velop into loud and vehement quarrels, and on one
occasion came so near to violence as to be subsequent-
ly described by Pornick (who read his newspaper) as
a "Disgraceful Frackass." On that occasion he cer-
tainly went into his own shop with extreme celerity.

But It was through one of these quarrels that the
friendship of little Kipps and Sid Pornick came about.
The two small boys found themselves one day looking
through the gate at the doctor's goats together; they
exchanged a few contradictions about which goat
could fight which, and then young Kipps was moved
to remark that Sid's father was a "blaring jackass."
Sid said he wasn't, and Kipps repeated that he was,
and quoted his authority. Then Sid, flying off at a
tangent rather alarmingly, said he could fight young
Kipps with one hand, an assertion young Kipps with
a secret want of confidence denied. There were some
vain repetitions, and the incident might have ended
there, but happily a sporting butcher boy chanced on
the controversy at this stage, and Insisted upon seeing
fair play.

The two small boys under his pressing encourage-
ment did at last button up their jackets, square and
fight an edifying drawn battle, until It seemed good to
the butcher boy to go on with Mrs. Holyer's mutton.
Then, according to his directions and under his ex-
perienced stage management, they shook hands and
made It up. Subsequently, a little tear-stained per-
haps, but flushed with the butcher boy's approval

lo THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

("tough little kids"), and with cold stones down
their necks as he advised, they sat side by side on the
doctor's gate, projecting very much behind, staunch-
ing an honourable bloodshed, and expressing respect
for one another. Each had a bloody nose and a black
eye — three days later they matched to a shade —
neither had given in, and, though this was tacit,
neither wanted any more.

It was an excellent beginning. After this first en-
counter the attributes of their parents and their own
relative value in battle never rose between them, and
if anything was wanted to complete the warmth of
their regard it was found in a joint dislike of the
eldest Quodling. The eldest Quodling lisped, had a
silly sort of straw hat and a large pink face (all cov-
ered over with self-satisfaction), and he went to the
National School with a green baize bag — a contempti-
ble thing to do. They called him names and threw
stones at him, and when he replied by threatenings
("Look 'ere, young Art Kipth, you better thtoppit!")
they were moved to attack and put him to flight.

And after that they broke the head of Ann Por-
nick's doll, so that she went home weeping loudly — a
wicked and endearing proceeding. Sid was whacked,
but, as he explained, he wore a newspaper tactically
adjusted during the transaction, and really it didn't
hurt him at all. . . . And Mrs. Pornick put her
head out of the shop door suddenly, and threatened
Kipps as he passed.

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP ii

§2

"Cavendish Academy," the school that had won
the limited choice of Kipps' vanished mother, was es-
tablished in a battered private house in the part of
Hastings remotest from the sea ; it was called an
Academy for Young Gentlemen, and many of the
young gentlemen had parents in "India," and other
unverifiable places. Others were the sons of credu-
lous widows, anxious, as Kipps' mother had been, to
get something a little "superior" to a board school
education as cheaply as possible; and others again
were sent to demonstrate the dignity of their parents
and guardians. And of course there were boys from
France.

Its "principal" was a lean, long creature of indiffer-
ent digestion and temper, who proclaimed himself on
a gilt-lettered board in his front garden George Gar-
den Woodrow, F.S.Sc, letters indicating that he had
paid certain guineas for a bogus diploma. A bleak
white-washed outhouse constituted his schoolroom,
and the scholastic quality of its carved and worn desks
and forms was enhanced by a slippery blackboard and
two large yellow out-of-date maps, one of Africa and
the other of Wiltshire, that he had picked up cheap
at a sale. There were other maps and globes in his
study, where he interviewed inquiring parents, but
these his pupils never saw. And in a glass cupboard
in the passage was several shillingsworth of test tubes
and chemicals, a tripod, a glass retort, and a damaged

1 2 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Bunsen burner, manifesting that the "Scientific labora-
tory" mentioned in the prospectus was no idle boast.

This prospectus, which was in dignified but incor-
rect English, laid particular stress on the sound prep-
aration for a commercial career given in the Acad-
emy, but the army, navy and civil service were
glanced at in an ambiguous sentence. There was
something vague in the prospectus about "examina-
tional successes" — though Woodrow, of course, dis-
approved of "cram" — and a declaration that the cur-
riculum included "art," "modern foreign languages"
and "a sound technical and scientific training." Then
came insistence upon the "moral well-being" of the
pupils, and an emphatic boast of the excellence of the
religious instruction, "so often neglected nowadays
even in schools of wide repute." "That's bound to
fetch 'em," Mr. Woodrow had remarked when he
drew up the prospectus. And in conjunction with the
mortarboards it certainly did. Attention was directed
to the "motherly" care of Mrs. Woodrow — in reality
a small partially effaced woman with a plaintive face
and a mind above cookery; and the prospectus con-
cluded with a phrase intentionally vague, "Fare un-
restricted, and our own milk and produce."

The memories Kipps carried from that school into
after life were set in an atmosphere of stuflBness and
mental muddle; and included countless pictures of sit-
ting on creaking forms bored and idle, of blot licking
and the taste of ink, of torn books with covers that
set one's teeth on edge, of the slimy surface of the

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 13

laboured slates, of furtive marble-playing, whispered
story-telling, and of pinches, blows, and a thousand
such petty annoyances being perpetually "passed on"
according to the custom of the place, of standing up
in class and being hit suddenly and unreasonably for
imaginary misbehaviour, of Mr. Woodrow's raving
days, when a scarcely sane injustice prevailed, of the
cold vacuity of the hour of preparation before the
bread-and-butter breakfast, and of horrible headaches
and queer, unprecedented, internal feelings resulting
from Mrs. Woodrow's motherly rather than intelli-
gent cookery. There were dreary walks, when the
boys marched two by two, all dressed in the mortar-
board caps that so impressed the widowed mothers;
there were dismal half-holidays when the weather was
wet and the spirit of evil temper and evil imagination
had the pent boys to work its will on ; there were un-
fair, dishonourable fights and miserable defeats and
victories, there was bullying and being bullied. A
coward boy Kipps particularly afflicted, until at last
he was goaded to revolt by incessant persecution, and
smote Kipps to tolerance with whirling fists. There
were memories of sleeping three in a bed, of the dense
leathery smell of the schoolroom when one returned
thither after ten minutes' play, of a playground of
mud and incidental sharp flints. And there was much
furtive foul language.

"Our Sundays are our happiest days," was one of
Woodrow's formulas with the inquiring parent, but
Kipps was not called in evidence. They were to him

14 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

terrible gaps of inanity — no work, no play, a drear
expanse of time with the mystery of church twice and
plum duff once in the middle. The afternoon was
given up to furtive relaxations, among which "Tor-
ture Chamber" games with the less agreeable, weaker
boys figured. It was from the difference between this
day and common days that Kipps derived his first
definite conceptions of the nature of God and heaven.
His instinct was to evade any closer acquaintance as
long as he could.

The school work varied, according to the prevail-
ing mood of Mr. Woodrow. Sometimes that was a
despondent lethargy; copy-books were distributed or
sums were "set," or the great mystery of bookkeeping
was declared In being, and beneath these superficial
activities lengthy conversations and interminable
guessing games with marbles went on while Mr.
Woodrow sat inanimate at his desk heedless of school
affairs, staring in front of him at unseen things. At
times his face was utterly inane, at times it had an ex-
pression of stagnant amazement, as If he saw before
his eyes with pitiless clearness the dishonour and mis-
chief of his being.

At other times the F.S.Sc. roused himself to action,
and would stand up a wavering class and teach it,
goading it with bitter mockery and blows through a
chapter of Ann's "First French Course," or "France
and the French," or a Dialogue about a traveller's
washing, or the parts of an opera-house. His own
knowledge of French had been obtained years ago in

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 15

another English private school, and he had refreshed
it by occasional weeks of loafing and mean adventure
in Dieppe. He would sometimes in their lessons hit
upon some reminiscence of these brighter days, and
then he would laugh inexplicably and repeat French
phrases of an unfamiliar type.

Among the commoner exercises he prescribed the
learning of long passages of poetry from a "Poetry
Book," which he would delegate an elder boy to
"hear," and there was reading aloud from the Holy
Bible, verse by verse — it was none of your "godless"
schools! — so that you counted the verses up to your
turn and then gave yourself to conversation — and
sometimes one read from a cheap History of this
land. They did, as Kipps reported, "loads of cate-
chism." Also there was much learning of geographi-
cal names and lists, and sometimes Woodrow in an
outbreak of energy would see these names were actu-
ally found on a map. And once, just once, there was
a chemistry lesson — a lesson of indescribable excite-
ment— glass things of the strangest shape, a smell like
bad eggs, something bubbling in something, a smash
and stench, and Mr. Woodrow saying quite distinctly
— they thrashed it out in the dormitory afterwards —
"Damn!" followed by the whole school being kept
in, with extraordinary severities, for an hour. . . .

But interspersed with the memories of this grey
routine were certain patches of brilliant colour — the
holidays, his holidays, which in spite of the feud be-
tween their seniors, he spent as much as possible with

1 6 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Sid Pornick, the son of the irascible black-bearded
haberdasher next door. They seemed to be memories
of a different world. There were glorious days of
"mucking about" along the beach, the siege of unre-
sisting Martello towers, the incessant interest of the
mystery and motion of windmills, the windy excur-
sions with boarded feet over the yielding shingle to
Dungeness lighthouse — Sid Pornick and he far adrift
from reality, smugglers and armed men from the
moment they left Great Stone behind them — wander-
ings in the hedgeless reedy marsh, long excursions
reaching even to Hythe, where the machine guns of
the Empire are forever whirling and tapping, and to
Rye and Winchelsea, perched like dream-cities on
their little hills. The sky in these memories was the
blazing hemisphere of the marsh heavens in summer,
or its wintry tumult of sky and sea; and there were
wrecks, real wrecks, in it (near Dymchurch pitched
high and blackened and rotting were the ribs of a fish-
ing smack flung aside like an empty basket when the
sea had devoured its crew) ; and there was bathing all
naked in the sea, bathing to one's armpits and even
trying to swim in the warm sea-water (spite of his
aunt's prohibition), and (with her indulgence) the
rare eating of dinner from a paper parcel miles away
from home. Toke and cold ground rice pudding with
plums it used to be — there is no better food at all.
And for the background, in the place of Woodrow's
mean, fretting rule, were his aunt's spare but fre-
quently quite amiable figure — for though she insisted

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 17

on his repeating the English Church Catechism every
Sunday, she had an easy way over dinners that one
wanted to take abroad — and his uncle, corpulent and
irascible, but sedentary and easily escaped. And free-
dom I

The holidays were indeed very different from
school. They were free, they were spacious, and
though he never knew it in these words — they had an
element of beauty. In his memory of his boyhood
they shone like strips of stained glass window in a
dreary waste of scholastic wall, they grew brighter
and brighter as they grew remoter. There came a
time at last and moods when he could look back to
them with a feeling akin to tears.

The last of these windows was the brightest, and
instead of the kaleidoscopic effects of its predecessors
its glory was a single figure. For in the last of his
holidays, before the Moloch of Retail Trade got hold
of him, Kipps made his first tentative essays at the
mysterious shrine of Love. Very tentative they were,
for he had become a boy of subdued passions, and
potential rather than actual affectionateness.

And the objects of these first stirrings of the great
desire was no other than Ann Pornick, the head of
whose doll he and Sid had broken long ago, and re-
joiced over long ago, in the days when he had yet to
learn the meaning of a heart.

1 8 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

§3

Negotiations were already on foot to make Kipps
into a draper before he discovered the lights that
lurked in Ann Pornick's eyes. School was over, abso-
lutely over, and it was chiefly present to him that
he was never to go to school again. It was high sum-
mer. The "breaking up" of school had been hilari-
ous; and the excellent maxim, "Last Day's Pay Day,"
had been observed by him with a scrupulous attention
to his honour. He had punched the heads of all his
enemies, wrung wrists and kicked shins; he had dis-
tributed all his unfinished copybooks, all his school
books, his collection of marbles and his mortarboard
cap among such as loved him; and he had secretly
written in obscure pages of their books, "remember
Art Kipps." He had also split the anaemic Wood-
row's cane, carved his own name deeply in several
places about the premises, and broken the scullery
window. He had told everybody so often that he
was to learn to be a sea captain that he had come
almost to believe the thing himself. And now he was
home, and school was at an end for him for evermore.

He was up before six on the day of his return, and
out in the hot sunlight of the yard. He set himself
to whistle a peculiarly penetrating arrangement of
three notes supposed by the boys of the Hastings
Academy and himself and Sid Pornick, for no earthly
reason whatever, to be the original Huron war-cry.
As he did this he feigned not to be doing it, because

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 19

of the hatred between his uncle and the Pornlcks, but
to be examining with respect and admiration a new
wing of the dustbin recently erected by his uncle — a
pretence that would not have deceived a nestling tom-
tit.

Presently there came a familiar echo from the Por-
nick hunting-ground. Then Kipps began to sing, "Ar
pars eight tra-la, in the lane be'ind the church." To
which an unseen person answered, "Ar pars eight it
is, in the lane be'ind the church." The "tra-la" was
considered to render this sentence incomprehensible to
the uninitiated. In order to conceal their operations
still more securely, both parties to this duet then gave
vent to a vocalisation of the Huron war-cry again,
and after a lingering repetition of the last and shrill-
est note, dispersed severally, as became boys in the
enjoyment of holidays, to light the house fires for the
day.

Half-past eight found Kipps sitting on the sunlit
gate at the top of the long lane that runs towards the
sea, clashing his boots in a slow rhythm, and whistling
with great violence all that he knew of an excruciat-
ingly pathetic air. There appeared along by the
churchyard wall a girl in a short frock, brown-haired,
quick-coloured, and with dark blue eyes. She had
grown so that she was a little taller than Kipps, and
her colour had improved. He scarcely remembered
her, so changed was she since last holidays — if indeed
he had seen her last holidays, a thing he could not
clearly remember. Some vague emotion arose at the

20 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

sight of her. He stopped whistling and regarded her,
oddly tongue-tied.

"He can't come," said Ann, advancing boldly.
"Not yet."

"What— not Sid?"

"No. Father's made him dust all his boxes
again."

"What for?"

"I dunno. Father's in a stew 'smorning."

"Oh!"

Pause. Kipps looked at her, and then was unable
to look at her again. She regarded him with interest.
"You left school?" she remarked after a pause.

"Yes."

"So's Sid."

The conversation languished. Ann put her hands
on the top of the gate, and began a stationary hop-
ping, a sort of ineffectual gymnastic experiment.

"Can you run?" she said presently.

"Run you any day," said Kipps.

"Gimme a start?"

"Where for?" said Kipps.

Ann considered, and indicated a tree. She walked
towards it, and turned. "Gimme to here?" she called.

Kipps, standing now and touching the gate, smiled
to express conscious superiority. "Further!" he said.

"Here?"

"Bit more !" said Kipps, and then, repenting of his
magnanimity, said "Orf !" suddenly, and so recovered
his lost concession.

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 21

They arrived abreast at the tree, flushed and out of
breath.

"Tie !" said Ann, throwing her hair back from her
face with her hand.

"1 won," panted Kipps.

They disputed firmly but quite politely.

"Run it again, then," said Kipps. "/ don't mind."

They returned towards the gate.

"You don't run bad," said Kipps, temperately ex-
pressing sincere admiration. "I'm pretty good, you
know."

Ann sent her hair back by an expert toss of the
head. "You give me a start," she allowed.

They became aware of Sid approaching them.

"You better look out, young Ann," said Sid, with
that irreverent want of sympathy usual in brothers.
"You been out nearly 'arf-hour. Nothing ain't been
done upstairs. Father said he didn't know where you
was, but when he did he'd warm y'r young ear."

Ann prepared to go.

"How about that race?" asked Kipps.

"Lor!" cried Sid, quite shocked. "You ain't been
racing her!"

Ann swung herself round the end of the gate with
her eyes on Kipps, and then turned away suddenly and
ran off down the lane.

Kipps' eyes tried to go after her, and came back to
Sid's.

"I give her a lot of start," said Kipps apologeti-
cally. "It wasn't a proper race," And so the subject

22 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

was dismissed. But Kipps was distrait for some sec-
onds, perhaps, and the mischief had begun in him.

§4

They proceeded to the question of how two accom-
plished Hurons might most satisfactorily spend the
morning. Manifestly their line lay straight along the
lane to the sea.

"There's a new wreck," said Sid, "and my! — don't
it smell just!"

"Smell?"

"Fair make you sick. It's rotten wheat."

They fell to talking of wrecks, and so came to iron-
clads and wars and suchlike manly matters.

Half-way to the wreck Kipps made a casual irrele-
vant remark. "Your sister ain't a bad sort," he said
oft'-handedly.

"I clout her a lot," said Sidney modestly, and after
a pause the talk reverted to more suitable topics.

The new wreck was full of rotting grain, and smelt
abominably, even as Sid had said. This was excel-
lent. They had it all to themselves. They took pos-
session of it in force, at Sid's suggestion, and had
speedily to defend it against enormous numbers of
imaginary "natives," who were at last driven off by
loud shouts of bang, bang, and vigorous thrusting and
shoving of sticks. Then, also at Sid's direction, they
sailed with it into the midst of a combined French,
German and Russian fleet, demolishing the combina-

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 23

tion unassisted, and having descended to the beach,
clambered up the side and cut out their own vessel in
brilhant style, they underwent a magnificent ship-
wreck (with vocalised thunder) and floated "water-
logged"— so Sid insisted — upon an exhausted sea.

These things drove Ann out of mind for a time.
But at last, as they drifted without food or water
upon a stagnant ocean, haggard-eyed, chins between
their hands, looking in vain for a sail, she came to
mind again abruptly.

"It's rather nice 'aving sisters," remarked one per-
ishing mariner.

Sid turned round and regarded him thoughtfully.
"Not it!" he said.

"No?"

"Not a bit of it." He grinned confidentially.
"Know too much," he said; and afterwards, "Get out
of things,"

He resumed his gloomy scrutiny of the hopeless
horizon. Presently he fell to spitting jerkily between
his teeth, as he had read was the way with such ripe
manhood as chews its quid.

"Sisters," he said, "is rot. That's what sisters are.
Girls if you like, but sisters — no!"

"But ain't sisters girls?"

^''N-eaow!" said Sid, with unspeakable scorn.

And Kipps answered, "Of course. I didn't
mean I wasn't thinking of that."

"You got a girl?" asked Sid, spitting very cleverly
again.

24 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. j

Kipps admitted his deficiency. He felt compunc-
tion.

"You don't know who viy girl is, Art Kipps — I bet."

"Who is, then?" asked Kipps, still chiefly occupied
by his own poverty.

"Ah!"

Kipps let a moment elapse before he did his duty.
"Tell us!"

Sid eyed him and hesitated. "Secret?" he said.

"Secret."

"Dying solemn?"

"Dying solemn!" Kipps' self-concentration passed
into curiosity.

Sid administered a terrible oath. Even after that
precaution he adhered lovingly to his facts. "It be-
gins with a Nem," he said, doling them out parsi-
moniously. " M A U D," he spelt, with a stern eye
on Kipps, "CHARTERI S."

Now, Maud Charteris was a young person of eigh-
teen and the daughter of the vicar of St. Bavon's, —
besides which she had a bicycle, — so that as her name
unfolded the face of Kipps lengthened with respect.
"Get out !" he gasped incredulously. "She ain't your
girl, Sid Pornick."

"She is!" answered Sid, stoutly.

"What— truth?"

"Truth."

Kipps scrutinised his face. "Reely?"

Sid touched wood, whistled, and repeated a bind-
ing doggerel with great solemnity.

CH. I * THE LITTLE SHOP 25

Kipps still struggled with the amazing new light
on the world about him. "D'you mean — she knows?"

Sid flushed deeply, and his aspect became stern and
gloomy. He resumed his wistful scrutiny of the sun-
lit sea. "I'd die for that girl, Art Kipps," he said
presently, and Kipps did not press a question he felt
to be ill timed. "I'd do anything she asked me to
do," said Sid — "just anything. If she was to ask me
to chuck myself into the sea." He met Kipps' eye.
"I would," he said.

They were pensive for a space, and then Sid began
to discourse in fragments of Love, a theme upon
which Kipps had already in a furtive way meditated
a little, Lut which, apart from badinage, he had never
yet heard talked about in the light of day. Of course
many and various aspects of life had come to light in
the muffled exchange of knowledge that went on
under the shadow of Woodrow, but this of Senti-
mental Love was not among them. Sid, who was a
boy with an imagination, having once broached this
topic, opened his heart, or at any rate a new wing of
his heart, to Kipps, and found no fault with Kipps for
a lack of return. He produced a thumbed novelette
that had played a part in his sentimental awakening;
he proffered it to Kipps, and confessed there was a
character in it, a baronet, singularly like himself.
This baronet was a person of volcanic passions which
he concealed beneath a demeanour of "icy cynicism."
The utmost expression he permitted himself was to
grit his teeth ; and now his attention was called to it,

26 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Kipps remarked that Sid also had a habit of gritting
his teeth — and indeed had had all the morning. They
read for a time, and presently Sid talked again. The
conception of love Sid made evident was compact of
devotion and much spirited fighting and a touch of
mystery; but through all that cloud of talk there
floated before Kipps a face that was flushed and hair
that was tossed aside.

So they budded, sitting on the blackening old wreck
in which men had lived and died, looking out to sea,
talking of that other sea upon which they must pres-
ently embark.

They ceased to talk, and Sid read; but Kipps fall-
ing behind with the reading and not wishing to admit
that he read slowlier than Sid, whose education was
of the inferior elementary school brand, lapsed into
meditation.

*'I would like to 'ave a girl," said Kipps. "I mean
just to talk to and all that. . . ."

A floating object distracted them at last from this
obscure topic. They abandoned the wreck and fol-
lowed the new interest a mile along the beach, bom-
barding it with stones until it came to land. They had
inclined to a View that it would contain romantic mys-
teries, but it was simply an ill-preserved kitten — too
much even for them. And at last they were drawn
dinnerward and went home hungry and pensive side
by side.

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 27

§5

But Kipps' imagination had been warmed by that
talk of love, and in the afternoon, when he saw Ann
Pornick In the High Street and said "Hello!" it was
a different "hello" from that of their previous inter-
course. And when they had passed they both looked
back and caught each other doing so. Yes, he did
want a girl badly.

Afterwards he was distracted by a traction engine
going through the town, and his aunt had got some
sprats for supper. When he was in bed, however,
sentiment came upon him again in a torrent quite
abruptly and abundantly, and he put his head under
the pillow and whispered very softly, "I love Ann
Pornick," as a sort of supplementary devotion.

In his subsequent dreams he ran races with Ann,
and they lived In a wreck together, and always her
face was flushed and her hair about her face. They
just lived in a wreck and ran races, and were very, very
fond of one another. And their favourite food was
rock-chocolate, dates, such as one buys off barrows,
and sprats — fried sprats.

In the morning he could hear Ann singing in the
scullery next door. He listened to her for some time,
and it was clear to him that he must put things before
her.

Towards dusk that evening they chanced on one
another at the gate by the church; but though there
was much in his mind, it stopped there with a resolute

28 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

shyness until he and Ann were out of breath catching
cockchafers, and were sitting on that gate of theirs
again. Ann sat up upon the gate, dark against vast
masses of flaming crimson and darkling purple, and
her eyes looked at Kipps from a shadowed face.
There came a stillness between them, and quite
abruptly he was moved to tell his love.

"Ann," he said, "I do like you. I wish you was my
girl. ... I say, Ann: will you be my girl?"

Ann made no pretence of astonishment. She
weighed the proposal for a moment with her eyes on
Kipps. "If you like, Artie," she said Hghtly. "/
don't mind if I am."

"All right," said Kipps, breathless with excitement,
"then you are."

"All right," said Ann.

Something seemed to fall between them, and they
no longer looked openly at one another. "Lor' !"
cried Ann suddenly, "see that one!" and jumped
down and darted after a cockchafer that had boomed
within a yard of her face. And with that they were
girl and boy again.

They avoided their new relationship painfully.

They did not recur to It for several days, though
they met twice. Both felt that there remained some-
thing before this great experience was complete, but
there was an Infinite diffidence about the next step.
Kipps talked in fragments of all sorts of matters,
telling particularly of the great things that were being
done to make a man and a draper of him, how he had

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 29

two new pairs of trousers and a black coat and four
new shirts. And all the while his imagination was
urging him to that unknown next step, and when he
was alone and in the dark he became even an enter-
prising wooer. It became evident to him that it would
be nice to take Ann by the hand; even the decorous
novelettes Sid affected egged him on to that greater
nearness of intimacy.

Then a great idea came to him, in a paragraph
called "Lovers' Tokens" that he read in a torn frag-
ment of Tit Bits. It fell in to the measure of his
courage — a divided sixpence 1 He secured his aunt's
best scissors, fished a sixpence out of his jejune tin
money-box, and jabbed his finger in a varied series of
attempts to get it in half. When they met again the
sixpence was still undivided. He had not intended to
mention the matter to her at that stage, but it came up
spontaneously. He endeavoured to explain the the-
ory of broken sixpences and his unexpected failure to
break one.

"But what you break it for?" said Ann. "It's no
good if it's broke."

"It's a Token," said Kipps.

"Like . . . ?"

"Oh, you keep half and I keep half, and when
we're sep'rated you look at your half and I look at
mine — see! Then we think of each other."

"Oh!" said Ann, and appeared to assimilate this
information.

"Only / can't get it in 'arf nohow," said Kipps.

30 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

They discussed this difficulty for some time without
illumination. Then Ann had a happy thought. "Tell
you what," she said, starting away from him abruptly
and laying a hand on his arm, "you let me 'ave it,
Artie. I know where father keeps his file."

Kipps handed her the sixpence, and they came upon
a pause.

"I'll easy do it," said Ann.

In considering the sixpence side by side, his head
had come near her cheek. Quite abruptly he was
moved to take his next step into the unknown mys-
teries of love.

"Ann," he said, and gulped at his temerity, "I do
love you. Straight. I'd do anything for you, Ann.
Reely— I would."

He paused for breath. She answered nothing, but
she was no doubt enjoying herself. He came yet
closer to her — his shoulder touched hers. "Ann, I
wish you'd "

He stopped.

"What?" said Ann.

"Ann — lemme kiss you."

Things seemed to hang for a space; his tone, the
drop of his courage, made the thing incredible as he
spoke. Kipps was not of that bold order of wooers
who impose conditions.

Ann perceiv^ed that she was not prepared for kiss-
ing after all. Kissing, she said, was silly, and when
Kipps would have displayed a belated enterprise, she
flung away from him. He essayed argument. He

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 31

stood afar off, as it were — the better part of a yard —
and said she might let him kiss her, and then that he
didn't see what good it was for her to be his girl if
he couldn't kiss her.

She repeated that kissing was silly. A certain
estrangement took them homeward. They arrived in
the dusky High Street not exactly together, and not
exactly apart, but struggling. They had not kissed,
but all the guilt of kissing was between them. When
Kipps saw the portly contours of his uncle standing
dimly in the shop doorway, his footsteps faltered, and
the space between our young couple increased. Above,
the window over Pornick's shop was open, and Mrs.
Pornick was visible, taking the air. Kipps assumed
an expression of extreme innocence. He found him-
self face to face with his uncle's advanced outposts of
waistcoat buttons.

"Where ye bin, my boy?"

"Bin for a walk, uncle."

"Not along of that brat of Pornick's?"

"Along of who?"

"That gell" — indicating Ann with his pipe.

"Oh, no, uncle 1" — very faintly.

"Run in, my boy."

Old Kipps stood aside, with an oblique glance up-
ward, and his nephew brushed clumsily by him and
vanished out of sight of the street, into the vague ob-
scurity of the little shop. The door closed behind old
Kipps with a nervous jangle of its bell, and he set
himself to light the single oil lamp that illuminated

32 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

his shop at nights. It was an operation requiring
care and watching, or else it flared and "smelt."
Often it smelt after all. Kipps for some reason found
the dusky living-room with his aunt in it too populous
for his feelings, and went upstairs.

"That brat of Pornick's!" It seemed to him that
a horrible catastrophe had occurred. He felt he had
identified himself inextricably with his uncle, and cut
himself off from her for ever by saying "Oh, no!"
At supper he was so visibly depressed that his aunt
asked him if he wasn't feeling well. Under this im-
minent threat of medicine he assumed an unnatural
cheerfulness.

He lay awake for nearly half an hour that night,
groaning because things had all gone wrong — because
Ann wouldn't let him kiss her, and because his uncle
had called her a brat. It seemed to Kipps almost as
though he himself had called her a brat.

There came an interval during which Ann was alto-
gether inaccessible. One, two, three days passed, and
he did not see her. Sid he met several times; they
went fishing, and twice they bathed; but though Sid
lent and received back two further love stories, they
talked no more of love. They kept themselves in ac-
cord, however, agreeing that the most flagrantly sen-
timental story was "proper." Kipps was always
wanting to speak of Ann, but never daring to do so.
He saw her on Sunday evening going off to chapel.
She was more beautiful than ever in her Sunday
clothes, but she pretended not to see him because her

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 33

mother was with her. But he thought she pretended
not to see him because she had given him up for ever.
Brat! — who could be expected ever to forgive that?
He abandoned himself to despair, he ceased even to
haunt the places where she might be found.

With paralysing unexpectedness came the end.

Mr. Shalford, the draper at Folkestone to whom
he was to be bound apprentice, had expressed a wish
to "shape the lad a bit" before the autumn sale.
Kipps became aware that his box was being packed,
and gathered the full truth of things on the evening
before his departure. He became feverishly eager to
see Ann just once more. He made silly and needless
excuses to go out into the yard, he walked three times
across the street without any excuse at all, to look up
at the Pornick windows. Still she was hidden. He
grew desperate. It was within half an hour of his
departure that he came on Sid.

"Hello!" he said; "I'm orfl"

"Business?"

"Yes."

Pause.

"I say, Sid. You going 'ome?"

"Straight now."

"D'you mind? Ask Ann about that."

"About what?"

"She'll know."

34 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

And Sid said he would. But even that, it seemed,
failed to evoke Ann.

At last the Folkestone bus rumbled up, and he
ascended. His aunt stood in the doorway to see him
off. His uncle assisted with the box and portman-
teau. Only furtively could he glance up at the Por-
nick windows, and still it seemed Ann hardened her
heart against him. "Get up!" said the driver, and
the hoofs began to clatter. No — she would not come
out even to see him off. The bus was in motion, and
old Kipps was going back into his shop. Kipps stared
in front of him, assuring himself that he did not care.

He heard a door slam, and instantly craned out his
neck to look back. He knew that slam so well. Be-
hold! out of the haberdasher's door a small, untidy
figure in homely pink print had shot resolutely into
the road, and was sprinting in pursuit. In a dozen
seconds she was abreast of the bus. At the sight of
her Kipps' heart began to beat very quickly, but he
made no immediate motion of recognition.

"Artie!" she cried breathlessly, "Artie! Artie!
You know ! I got that!"

The bus was already quickening its pace, and leav-
ing her behind again, when Kipps realized what
"that" meant. He became animated, he gasped, and
gathered his courage together, and mumbled an in-
coherent request to the driver to "stop jest a jiff for
sunthin'." The driver grunted, as the disparity of
their years demanded, and then the bus had pulled up,
and Ann was below.

CH. I THE LITTLE SHOP 35

She leapt up upon the wheel. Kipps looked down
into Ann's face, and it was foreshortened and reso-
lute. He met her eyes just for one second as their
hands touched. He was not a reader of eyes. Some-
thing passed quickly from hand to hand, something
that the driver, alert at the corner of his eye, was not
allowed to see. Kipps hadn't a word to say, and all
she said was, "I done it, 'smorning." It was like a
blank space in which something pregnant should have
been written and wasn't. Then she dropped down,
and the bus moved forward.

After the lapse of about ten seconds it occurred to
him to stand and wave his new bowler hat at her over
the corner of the bus top, and to shout hoarsely,
"Goo-bye, Ann ! Don' forget me — while I'm away!"

She stood in the road looking after him, and pres-
ently she waved her hand.

He remained standing unstably, his bright, flushed
face looking back at her, and his hair fluffing in the
wind, and he waved his hat until at last the bend of
the road hid her from his eyes. Then he turned about
and sat down, and presently he began to put the half
sixpence he held clenched in his hand into his trouser
pocket. He looked sideways at the driver, to judge
how much he had seen.

Then he fell a-thinking. He resolved that, come
what might, when he came back to New Romney at
Christmas, he would by hook or by crook kiss Ann.

Then everything would be perfect and right, and
he would be perfectly happy.

CHAPTER II

THE EMPORIUM
§1

When Kipps left New Romney, with a small yel-
low tin box, a still smaller portmanteau, a new um-
brella, and a keepsake half-sixpence, to become a
draper, he was a youngster of fourteen, thin, with
whimsical drakes' tails at the poll of his head, small-
ish features, and eyes that were sometimes very light
and sometimes very dark, gifts those of his birth ; and
by the nature of his training he was indistinct in his
speech, confused in his mind, and retreating in his
manners. Inexorable fate had appointed him to serve
his country in commerce, and the same national bias
towards private enterprise and leaving bad alone,
which entrusted his general education to Mr. Wood-
row, now indentured him firmly into the hands of Mr.
Shalford, of the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar. Ap-
prenticeship is still the recognised English way to the
distributing branch of the social service. If Mr.
Kipps had been so unfortunate as to have been born
a German he might have been educated in an elab-
orate and costly special school ("over-educated —
crammed up" — Old Kipps) to fit him for his end —

36

CH.ii THE EMPORIUM 37

such being their pedagogic way. He might .

But why make unpatriotic reflections in a novel?

There was nothing pedagogic about Mr. Shalford.

He was an irascible, energetic little man, with hairy
hands, for the most part under his coat tails, a long,
shiny, bald head, a pointed, aquiline nose a little
askew, and a neatly trimmed beard. He walked light-
ly and with a confident jerk, and he was given to hum-
ming. He had added to exceptional business "push,"
bankruptcy under the old dispensation, and judicious
matrimony. His establishment was now one of the
most considerable in Folkestone, and he insisted on
every inch of frontage by alternate stripes of green
and yellow down the houses over the shops. His shops
were numbered 3, 5 and 7 on the street, and on his
billheads 3 to 7. He encountered the abashed and
awestricken Kipps with the praises of his system and
himself. He spread himself out behind his desk with
a grip on the lapel of his coat and made Kipps a sort
of speech. "We expect y'r to work, y'r know, and we
expect y'r to study our interests," explained Mr. Shal-
ford in the regal and commercial plural. "Our sys-
tem here is the best system y'r could have. I made it,
and I ought to know. I began at the very bottom of
the ladder when I was fourteen, and there isn't a step
in it I don't know. Not a step. Mr. Booch in the
desk will give y'r the card of rules and fines. Jest
wait a minute." He pretended to be busy with some
dusty memoranda under a paper-weight, while Kipps
stood in a sort of paralysis of awe regarding his new

38 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

master's oval baldness. "Two thous'n three forty-
seven pounds," whispered Mr. Shalford audibly,
feigning forgetfulness of Kipps. Clearly a place of
great transactions !

Mr. Shalford rose, and handing Kipps a blotting-
pad and an inkpot to carry — mere symbols of servi-
tude, for he made no use of them — emerged into a
counting-house where three clerks had been fever-
ishly busy ever since his door handle had turned.
"Booch," said Mr. Shalford, " 'ave y'r copy of the
rules?" and a down-trodden, shabby little old man
with a ruler in one hand and a quill pen in his mouth,
silently held out a small book with green and yellow
covers, mainly devoted, as Kipps presently discovered,
to a voracious system of fines. He became acutely
aware that his hands were full, and that everybody
was staring at him. He hesitated a moment before
putting the inkpot down to free a hand.

"Mustn't fumble like that," said Mr. Shalford as
Kipps pocketed the rules. "Won't do here. Come
along, come along," and he cocked his coat tails high,
as a lady might hold up her dress, and led the way
into the shop.

A vast interminable place it seemed to Kipps, with
unending shining counters and innumerable faultlessly
dressed young men and presently Houri-like young
women staring at him. Here there was a long vista
of gloves dangling from overhead rods, there rib-
bons and baby-linen. A short young lady in black
mittens was making out the account of a customer,

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 39

and was clearly confused in her addition by Shalford's
eagle eye.

A thickset young man with a bald head and a
round, very wise face, who was profoundly absorbed
in adjusting all the empty chairs down the counter to
absolutely equal distances, awoke out of his preoccu-
pation and answered respectfully to a few Napoleonic
and quite unnecessary remarks from his employer.
Kipps was told that this young man's name was Mr.
Buggins, and that he was to do whatever Mr. Bug-
gins told him to do.

They came round a corner into a new smell, which
was destined to be the smell of Kipps' life for many
years, the vague, distinctive smell of Manchester
goods. A fat man with a large nose jumped — actu-
ally jumped — at their appearance, and began to fold
a pattern of damask in front of him exactly like an
automaton that is suddenly set going.

"Carshot, see to this boy to-morrow," said the mas-
ter. "See he don't fumble. Smart'n 'im up."

"Yussir," said Carshot fatly, glanced at Kipps, and
resumed his pattern-folding with extreme zeal.

"Whatever Mr. Carshot says y'r to do, ye do''
said Mr. Shalford, trotting onward; and Carshot
blew out his face with an appearance of relief.

They crossed a large room full of the strangest
things Kipps had ever seen. Ladylike figures, sur-
mounted by black wooden knobs in the place of the
refined heads one might have reasonably expected,
Stood about with a lifelike air of conscious fashion.

40 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"Costume room," said Shalford.

Two voices engaged in some sort of argument — "I
can assure you, Miss Mergle, you are entirely mis-
taken— entirely, in supposing I should do anything so
unwomanly," — sank abruptly, and they discovered
two young ladies, taller and fairer than any of the
other young ladies, and with black trains to their
dresses, who were engaged in writing at a little table.
Whatever they told him to do, Kipps gathered he was
to do. He was also, he understood, to do whatever
Carshot and Booch told him to do. And there were
also Buggins and Mr. Shalford. And not to forget
or fumble !

They descended mto a cellar called "The Ware-
house," and Kipps had an optical illusion of errand
boys fighting. Some aerial voice said, "Teddy!" and
the illusion passed. He looked again, and saw quite
clearly that they were packing parcels and always
would be, and that the last thing in the world that
they would or could possibly do was to fight. Yet he
gathered from the remarks Mr. Shalford addressed
to their busy backs that they had been fighting — no
doubt at some past period of their lives.

Emerging in the shop again among a litter of toys
and what are called "fancy articles," Shalford with-
drew a hand from beneath his coat tails to indicate an
overhead change-carrier. He entered Into elaborate
calculations to show how many minutes in one year
were saved thereby, and lost himself among the fig-
ures. "Seven turns eight seven nine — was It? Or

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 41

seven eight nine? Now, now! Why, when I was a
boy your age I c'd do a sum like that as soon as hear
it. We'll soon get y'r into better shape than that.
Make you Fishent. Well, y'r must take my word, it
comes to pounds and pounds saved in the year —
pounds and pounds. System ! System everywhere.
Fishency." He went on murmuring "Fishency" and
"System" at intervals for some time.

They passed into a yard, and Mr. Shalford waved
his hand to his three delivery vans all striped green
and yellow — "uniform — green, yell'r — System." All
over the premises were pinned absurd little cards.
"This door locked after 7 :30. — By order, Edwin
Shalford," and the like.

Mr. Shalford always wrote "By order," though it
conveyed no earthly meaning to him. He was one of
those people who collect technicalities upon them as
the Reduvius bug collects dirt. He was the sort of
man who is not only ignorant, but absolutely incapa-
ble of English. When he wanted to say he had a six-
penny-ha'penny longcloth to sell, he put it thus to
startled customers: "Can DO you one, six half if y'
like." He always omitted pronouns and articles and
so forth; it seemed to him the very essence of the
efficiently businesslike. His only preposition was
"as" or the compound "as per." He abbreviated
every word he could ; he would have considered him-
self the laughing-stock of Wood Street if he had
chanced to spell socks in any way but "sox." But, on
the other hand, If he saved words here, he wasted

42 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

them there : he never acknowledged an order that was
not an esteemed favour, nor sent a pattern without
begging to submit it. He never stipulated for so
many months' credit, but bought in November "as
Jan." It was not only words he abbreviated in his
London communications. In paying his wholesalers
his "System" admitted of a constant error in the dis-
count of a penny or twopence, and it "facilitated busi-
ness," he alleged, to ignore odd pence in the cheques
he wrote. His ledger clerk was so struck with the
beauty of this part of the System, that he' started a
private one on his own account with the stamp box,
that never came to Shalford's knowledge.

This admirable British merchant would glow with
a particular pride of intellect when writing his Lon-
don orders.

"Ah ! do y'r think you''\l ever be able to write Lon-
don orders?" he would say with honest pride to
Kipps, waiting impatiently long after closing time to
take these triumphs of commercial efficiency to post,
and so end the interminable day.

Kipps shook his head, anxious for Mr. Shalford to
get on.

"Now, here, f example, I've written — see? — *i
piece I in. cott. blk, elas. i/ or.' What do I mean by
that or, eh? — d'ye know?"

Kipps promptly hadn't the faintest idea.

"And then, '2 ea. silk net as per patts herewith';
ea., eh?"

"Dunno, sir,"

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 43

It was not Mr. Shalford's way to explain things.
"Dear, dear! Pity you couldn't get some c'mercial
education at your school. 'Stid of all this llt'ry stuff.
Well, my boy, If y' don't 'ussel a bit y'll never write
London orders, that's pretty plain. Jest stick stamps
on all those letters, and mind y'r stick 'em right way
up, and try and profit a little more by the opportuni-
ties your aunt and uncle have provided ye. Can't say
what^W happen t'ye if ye don't."

And KIpps, tired, hungry, and belated, set about
stamping with vigour and despatch.

"Lick the envelope," said Mr. Shalford, "lick the
envelope'' as though he grudged the youngster the
postage-stamp gum. "It's the little things mount
up," he would say; and, indeed, that was his philo-
sophy of life — to bustle and save, always to bustle
and save. His political creed linked Reform, which
meant nothing, with Efficiency which meant a sweated
service, and Economy which meant a sweated expen-
diture, and his conception of a satisfactory municipal
life was to "keep down the rates." Even his religion
was to save his soul, and to preach a similar cheese-
paring to the world.

§2

The Indentures that bound KIpps to Mr. Shalford
were antique and complex : they insisted on the latter
gentleman's parental privileges ; they forbade KIpps to
dice and game ; they made him over body and soul to

44 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Mr. Shalford for seven long years, the crucial years
of his life. In return there were vague stipulations
about teaching the whole art and mystery of the trade
to him; but as there was no penalty attached to negli-
gence, Mr. Shalford, being a sound, practical busi-
ness man, considered this a mere rhetorical flourish,
and set himself assiduously to get as much out of
Kipps and to put as little into him as he could in the
seven years of their intercourse.

What he put into Kipps was chiefly bread and mar-
garine, infusions of chicory and tea-dust, colonial
meat by contract at threepence a pound, potatoes by
the sack, and watered beer. If, however, Kipps chose
to buy any supplementary material for growth, Mr.
Shalford had the generosity to place his kitchen re-
sources at his disposal free — if the fire chanced to be
going. He was also allowed to share a bedroom
with eight other young Englishmen, and to sleep in a
bed which, except in very severe weather, could be
made with the help of his overcoat and private under-
linen, not to mention newspapers, quite suflScIently
warm for any reasonable soul. In addition Kipps
was taught the list of fines; and how to tie up parcels;
to know where goods were kept in Mr. Shalford's
systematised shop ; to- hold his hands extended upon
the counter and to repeat such phrases as "What can
I have the pleasure. . . . ?" "No trouble, I 'ssure
you," and the like; to block, fold, and measure ma-
terials of all sorts; to lift his hat from his head when
he passed Mr. Shalford abroad, and to practise a

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 45

servile obedience to a large number of people. But
he was not, of course, taught the "cost" mark of the
goods he sold, nor anything of the method of buying
such goods. Nor was his attention directed to the
unfamiliar social habits and fashions to which his
trade ministered. The use of half the goods he saw
sold and was presently to assist in selling he did not
understand; materials for hangings, cretonnes, chint-
zes, and the like, serviettes and all the bright, hard
white wear of a well-ordered house, pleasant dress
materials, linings, stiffenings — they were to him from
first to last no more than things heavy and difficult to
handle in bulk, that one folded up, unfolded, cut in
lengths, and saw dwindle and pass away out into that
mysterious happy world in which the customer dwells.
Kipps hurried from piling linen table-cloths, that were
collectively as heavy as lead, to eat off oil-cloth in a
gas-lit dining-room underground; and he dreamt of
combing endless blankets beneath his overcoat, spare
undershirt, and three newspapers. So he had at least
the chance of learning the beginnings of philosophy.
In return for these benefits he worked so that he
commonly went to bed exhausted and footsore. His
round began at half-past six in the morning, when he
would descend unwashed and shirtless, in old clothes
and a scarf, and dust boxes and yawn, and take down
wrappers and clean the windows until eight. Then in
half an hour he would complete his toilet and take an
austere breakfast of bread and margarine and what
only an Imperial Englishman would admit to be cof-

46 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

fee, after which refreshment he ascended to the shop
for the labours of the day. Commonly these began
with a mighty running to and fro with planks and
boxes and goods for Carshot, the window-dresser,
who, whether he worked well or ill, nagged persis-
tently by reason of a chronic indigestion, until the
window was done. Sometimes the costume window
had to be dressed, and then Kipps staggered down the
whole length of the shop from the costume room with
one after another of those ladylike shapes grasped
firmly, but shamefully, each about her single ankle of
wood. Such days as there was no window-dressing,
there was a mighty carrying and lifting of blocks and
bales of goods into piles and stacks. After this there
were terrible exercises, at first almost despairfully
difficult: certain sorts of goods that came in folded
had to be rolled upon rollers, and for the most part
refused absolutely to be rolled, at any rate by Kipps;
and certain other sorts of goods that came from the
wholesalers rolled had to be measured and folded,
which folding makes young apprentices wish they
were dead. All of it, too, quite avoidable trouble,
you know, that is not avoided because of the cheap-
ness of the genteeler sorts of labour and the dearness
of forethought in the world. And then consignments
of new goods had to be marked off and packed into
proper parcels; and Carshot packed like conjuring
tricks, and Kipps packed like a boy with tastes in
some other direction — not ascertained. And always
Carshot nagged.

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 47

He had a curious formula of appeal to his visceral
(Economy, had Carshot, that the refinement of the
times and the earnest entreaties of my friends induce
me to render by an anaemic paraphrase,

"My heart and lungs! I never see such a boy,"
so I present Carshot's refrain; and even when he was
within a foot or so of the customer's face the discip-
lined ear of Kipps would still at times develop a
featureless, intercalary murmur into — well, "my heart
and lungs!"

There came a blessed interval when Kipps was sent
abroad "matching." This consisted chiefly in supply-
ing unexpected defects in buttons, ribbon, lining, and
so forth in the dressmaking department. He was
given a written paper of orders with patterns pinned
thereto, and discharged Into the sunshine and interest
of the street. Then, until he thought It wise to return
and stand the racket of his delay, he was a free man,
clear of all reproach.

He made remarkable discoveries in topography, as
for example that the most convenient way from the
establishment of Mr. Adolphus Davis to the estab-
lishment of Messrs. Plummer, Roddls & Tyrrel, two
of his principal places of call, is not as is generally
supposed down the Sandgate Road, but up the Sand-
gate Road, round by West Terrace, and along the
Leas to the lift, watch the lift up and down twice, but
not longer, because that wouldn't do, back along the
Leas, watch the Harbour for a short time, and then
round by the churchyard, and so (hurrying) into

48 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Church Street and Rendezvous Street. But on some
exceptionally fine days the route lay through Radnor
Park to the pond where the little boys sail ships and
there are interesting swans.

He would return to find the shop settling down to
the business of serving customers. And now he had
to stand by to furnish any help that was necessary to
the seniors who serv^ed, to carry parcels and bills
about the shop, to clear away "stuff" after each en-
gagement, to hold up curtains until his arms ached,
and what was more difficult than all, to do nothing,
and not stare disconcertingly at customers when there
was nothing for him to do. He plumbed an abyss of
boredom, or stood a mere carcass, with his mind far
away, fighting the enemies of the Empire, or steering
a dream ship perilously into unknown seas. To be re-
called sharply to our higher civilisation by some bust-
ling senior's "Nar then, Kipps. Look alive ! Ketch
'old. (My heart and lungs!)"

At half-past seven o'clock — except on late nights —
a feverish activity of "straightening up" began, and
when the last shutter was up outside, Kipps with the
speed of an arrow leaving a bow would start hanging
wrappers over the fixtures and over the piles of wares
upon the counters, preparatory to a vigorous scatter-
ing of wet sawdust and the sweeping out of the shop.

Sometimes people would stay long after the shop
was closed — "They don't mind a bit at Shalford's,"
these ladies used to say — it is always ladies do this
sort of thing — and while they loitered it was forbid-

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 49

den to touch a wrapper, or take any measures to con-
clude the day until the doors closed behind them.

Mr. Kipps would watch these later customers from
the shadow of a stack of goods, and death and dis-
figurement was the least he wished for them. Rarely
much later than nine, a supper of bread and cheese
and watered beer awaited him upstairs, and, that con-
sumed, the rest of the day was entirely at his disposal
for reading, recreation, and the improvement of his
mind.

The front door was locked at half-past ten, and
the gas in the dormitory extinguished at eleven.

§3

On Sundays he was obliged to go to church once,
and commonly he went twice, for there was nothing
else to do. He sat in the free seats at the back; he
was too shy to sing, and not always clever enough to
keep his place in the prayer-book, and he rarely lis-
tened to the sermon. But he had developed a sort of
idea that going to church had a tendency to alleviate
life. His aunt wanted to have him confirmed, but he
evaded this ceremony for some years.

In the intervals between services he walked about
Folkestone with an air of looking for something.
Folkestone was not so Interesting on Sundays as on
week-days, because the shops were shut; but on the
other hand there was a sort of confusing brilliance
along the front of the Leas In the afternoon. Some-

so THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

times the apprentice next above him would conde-
scend to go with him ; but when the apprentice next
but one above him condescended to go with the ap-
prentice next above him, then Kipps, being habited as
yet in ready-made clothes without tails, and unsuitable
therefore to appear in such company, went alone.

Sometimes he would strilce out into the country —
still as if looking for something he missed — but the
rope of meal-times haled him home again; and some-
times he would invest the major portion of the weekly
allowance of a shilling that old Booch handed out to
him, in a sacred concert on the pier. He would some-
times walk up and down the Leas between twenty and
thirty times after supper, desiring much the courage
to speak to some other person in the multitude simi-
larly employed. Almost invariably he ended his Sun-
day footsore.

He never read a book; there were none for him to
read, and besides, in spite of Mr. Woodrow's guid-
ance through a cheap and cheaply annotated edition
of the Tempest (English Literature) he had no taste
that way; he never read any newspapers, except occa-
sionally Tit-Bits or a ha'penny "comic." His chief
intellectual stimulus was an occasional argey-bargey
that sprang up between Carshot and Buggins at din-
ner. Kipps listened as if to unparalleled wisdom and
wit, and treasured all the gems of repartee in his heart
against the time when he, too, should be a Buggins
and have the chance and courage for speech.

At times there came breaks in this routine — sale

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 51

times, darkened by extra toil and work past midnight,
but brightened by a sprat supper and some shillings
in the way of 'premiums.' And every year — not now
and then, but every year — Mr. Shalford, with paren-
thetic admiration of his own generosity and glancing
comparisons with the austerer days when he was ap-
prenticed, conceded Kipps no less than ten days' holi-
day— ten whole days every year! Many a poor soul
at Portland might well envy the fortunate Kipps. In-
satiable heart of man! but how those days were
grudged and counted as they snatched themselves
away from him one after another!

Once a year came stock-taking, and at intervals
gusts of "marking off" goods newly arrived. Then
the splendours of Mr. Shalford's being shone with
oppressive brilliancy. "System !" he would say, "sys-
tem. Come ! 'ussel !" and issue sharp, confusing, con-
tradictory orders very quickly. Carshot trotted about,
confused, perspiring, his big nose up in the air, his
little eye on Mr. Shalford, his forehead crinkled, his
lips always going to the formula "Oh, my heart and
lungs !" The smart junior and the second apprentice
vied with one another in obsequious alacrity. The
smart junior aspired to Carshot's position, and that
made him almost violently subservient to Shalford.
They all snapped at Kipps. Kipps held the blotting-
pad and the safety inkpot and a box of tickets, and
ran and fetched things. If he put the ink down be-
fore he went to fetch things Mr. Shalford usually
knocked it over, and if he took it away Mr. Shalford

52 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

wanted it before he returned. "You make my tooth
ache, Kipps," Mr. Shalford would say. "You gimme
n'ralgia. You got no more System in you than a bad
potato." And at the times when Kipps carried off
the inkpot Mr. Shalford would become purple in the
face and jab round with his dry pen at imaginary ink-
pots and swear, and Carshot would stand and vocifer-
ate, and the smart junior would run to the corner of
the department and vociferate, and the second ap-
prentice would pursue Kipps, vociferating, "Look
Alive, Kipps ! Look Alive ! Ink, Man ! Ink !"

A vague self-disgust, that shaped itself as an in-
tense hate of Shalford and all his fellow-creatures,
filled the soul of Kipps during these periods of storm
and stress. He felt that the whole business was un-
just and idiotic, but the why and the wherefore was
too much for his unfortunate brain. His mind was a
welter. One desire, the desire to dodge some at least
of a pelting storm of disagreeable comment, guided
him through a fumbling performance of his duties.
His disgust was infinite ! It was not decreased by the
inflamed ankles and sore feet that form a normal inci-
dent in the business of making an English draper;
and the senior apprentice, Minton, a gaunt, sullen-
faced youngster with close-cropped, wiry, black hair,
a loose, ugly mouth, and a moustache like a smudge
of ink, directed his attention to deeper aspects of the
question and sealed his misery.

"When you get too old to work they chuck you
away," said Minton. "Lor! you find old drapers

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 53

everywhere — tramps, beggars, dock labourers, 'bus
conductors — Quod. Anywhere but in a crib."

"Don't they get shops of their own?"

"Lord! 'Oiv are they to get shops of their own?
They 'aven't any capital ! How's a draper's shopman
to save up five hundred pounds even? I tell you it
can't be done. You got to stick to cribs until it's over.
I tell you we're in a blessed drainpipe, and we've got
to crawl along it till we die."

The idea that fermented perpetually in the mind of
Minton was to "hit the little beggar slap in the eye"
— the little beggar being Mr. Shalford — "and see
how his blessed System met that."

The threat filled Kipps with splendid anticipations
whenever Shalford went marking off in Minton's de-
partment. He would look at Minton and look at
Shalford, and decide where he would best like Shal-
ford hit. . . . But for reasons known to him-
self Shalford never pished and tushed with Minton,
as he did at the harmless Carshot, and this interesting
experiment upon the System was never attempted.

§4

There were times when Kipps would lie awake,
all others in the dormitory asleep and snoring, and
think dismally of the outlook Minton pictured. Dim-
ly he perceived the thing that had happened to him —
how the great, stupid machine of retail trade had
caught his life into its wheels, a vast, irresistible force

54 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

which he had neither strength of will nor knowledge
to escape. This was to be his life until his days should
end. No adventures, no glory, no change, no free-
dom. Neither — though the force of that came home
to him later — might he dream of effectual love and
marriage. And there was a terrible something called
the "swap," or "the key of the street," and "crib
hunting," of which the talk was scanty but sufficient.
Night after night he would resolve to enlist, to run
away to sea, to set fire to the warehouse, or drown
himself; and morning after morning he rose up and
hurried downstairs In fear of a sixpenny fine. He
would compare his dismal round of servile drudgery
with those windy, sunlit days at LIttlestone, those win-
dows of happiness shining ever brighter as they re-
ceded. The little figure of Ann seemed in all these
windows now.

She, too, had happened on evil things. When
Kipps went home for the first Christmas after he was
bound, that great suspended resolve of his to kiss her
flared up to hot determination, and he hurried out
and whistled In the yard. There was a still silence,
and then old Kipps appeared behind him.

"It's no good your whistling there, my boy," said
Old Kipps in a loud, clear tone, designed to be audible
over the wall. "They've cleared out all you 'ad any
truck with. She's gone as help to Ashford, my boy.
Help! Slavey is what we used to call 'em, but times
are changed. Wonder they didn't say lady-'elp while
they was about It. It 'ud be like 'em."

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 55

And Sid? Sid had gone, too. "Arrand boy or
somethink," said Old Kipps. "To one of these here
brasted cicycle shops."

*'//aj 'e!" said Kipps, with a feeling that he had
been gripped about the chest, and he turned quickly
and went indoors.

Old Kipps, still supposing him present, went on to
further observations of an anti-Pornick hue.

When Kipps got upstairs safe in his own bedroom,
he sat down on the bed and stared at nothing. They
were caught — they were all caught. All life took on
the hue of one perpetual, dismal Monday morning.
The Hurons were scattered, the wrecks and the beach
had passed away from him, the sun of those warm
evenings at Littlestone had set for evermore. . . .

The only pleasure left for the brief remainder of
his holiday after that was to think he was not in the
shop. Even that was transient. Two more days —
one more day — half a day. When he went back there
were one or two very dismal nights indeed. He went
so far as to write home some vague intimation of his
feelings about business and his prospects, quoting
Minton. But Mrs. Kipps answered him, "Did he
want the Pornicks to say he wasn't good enough to be
a draper?" This dreadful possibility was of course
conclusive in the matter. "No," he resolved they
should not say he failed at that.

He derived much help from a "manly" sermon de-
livered in an enormous voice by a large, fat, sun-red
clergyman, just home from a colonial bishopric he had

56 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

resigned on the plea of ill-health, exhorting him that
whatever his hand found to do, he was to do with all
his might; and the revision of his Catechism prepara-
tory to his confirmation reminded him that it be-
hooved him "to do his duty in that state of life unto
which it shall please God to call him. . . ."

After a time the sorrows of Kipps grew less acute,
and save for a miracle the brief tragedy of his life
was over. He subdued himself to his position even
as his Church required of him, seeing moreover no
way out of it.

The earliest mitigation of his lot was that his soles
and ankles became indurated to the perpetual stand-
ing. The next was an unexpected weekly whiff of
freedom that came every Thursday. Mr. Shalford,
after a brave stand for what he called "Innyvishal
lib'ty" and the "Idea of my System," a stand which
he explained he made chiefly on patriotic grounds,
was at last, under pressure of certain of his customers,
compelled to fall in line with the rest of the local
Early Closing Association, and Mr. Kipps could
emerge in daylight and go where he listed for long,
long hours. Moreover Minton, the pessimist, reached
the end of his appointed time and left — to enlist in a
cavalry regiment and go about this planet leading an
insubordinate but interesting life, that ended at last in
an intimate, vivid and really you know by no means
painful or tragic night grapple in the Terah Valley.
In a little while Kipps cleaned windows no longer;
he was serving customers (of the less important sort)

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 57

and taking goods out on approval; and presently he
was third apprentice, and his moustache was visible,
and there were three apprentices whom he might
legally snub and cuff. But one was (most dishonest-
ly) too big to cuff in spite of his greener years.

§5

There came still other distractions, the natural dis-
tractions of adolescence, to take his mind off the in-
evitable. His costume, for example, began to interest
him more; he began to realise himself as a visible
object, to find an interest in the costume-room mirrors
and the eyes of the girl apprentices.

In this he was helped by counsel and example.
Pierce, his immediate senior, was by way of being
what was called a Masher, and preached his cult.
During slack times grave discussions about collars,
ties, the cut of trouser legs, and the proper shape of a
boot-toe, were held in the Manchester department.
In due course Kipps went to a tailor, and his short
jacket was replaced by a morning coat with tails.
Stirred by this, he purchased at his own expense three
stand-up collars to replace his former turn-down ones.
They were nearly three inches high, higher than those
Pierce wore, and they made his neck quite sore and
left a red mark under his ears. ... So equipped,
he found himself fit company even for this fashion-
able apprentice, who had now succeeded Minton in
his seniority.

Most potent help of all in the business of forget-

58 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

ting his cosmic disaster was this, that so soon as he
was in tail coats the young ladies of the establishment
began to discover that he was no longer a "horrid
little boy." Hitherto they had tossed heads at him
and kept him in his place. Now they discovered that
he was a "nice boy," which is next door at least to
being a "feller," and in some ways even preferable.
It is painful to record that his fidelity to Ann failed
at their first onset. I am fully sensible how entirely
better this story would be from a sentimental point of
view if he had remained true to that early love. Only
then it would have been a different story altogether.
And at least Kipps was thus far true, that with none
of these later loves was there any of that particular
quality that linked Ann's flushed face and warmth
and the inner things of life so inseparably together.
Though they were not without emotions of various
sorts.

It was one of the young ladies in the costume-room
who first showed by her manner that he was a visible
object and capable of exciting interest. She talked to
him, she encouraged him to talk to her, she lent him
a book she possessed, and darned a sock for him, and
said she would be his elder sister. She allowed him
to escort her to church with a great air of having in-
duced him to go. Then she investigated his eternal
welfare, overcame a certain affectation of virile indif-
ference to religion, and extorted a promise that he
would undergo "confirmation." This excited the other
young lady in the costumes, her natural rival, and she

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 59

set herself with great charm and subtlety to the cap-
ture of the ripening heart of Kipps. She took a more
worldly line. She went for a walk, with him to the
pier on Sunday afternoon, and explained to him how
a gentleman must always walk "outside" a lady on a
pavement, and how all gentlemen wore, or at least
carried gloves, and generally the broad beginnings of
the British social ideal. Afterwards the ladies ex-
changed "words," upon Sabbatical grounds. In this
way was the toga virilis bestowed on Kipps, and he
became recognised as a suitable object for that Pla-
tonic Eros whose blunted darts devastate even the
very highest-class establishments. In this way, too,
did that pervading ambition of the British young man
to be, if not a "gentleman," at least mistakably like
one, take root in his heart.

He took to these new interests with quite natural
and personal zest. He became initiated into the mys-
teries of "flirting," and — at a slightly later stage, and
with some leading hints from Pierce, who was of a
communicative disposition in these matters — of the
milder forms of "spooning." Very soon he was en-
gaged. Before two years were out he had been en-
gaged six times, and was beginning to be rather a
desperate fellow, so far as he could make out. Des-
perate, but quite gentlemanly, be it understood, and
without let or hindrance to the fact that he was, in
four brief lessons, "prepared" by a distant-mannered
and gloomy young curate, and "confirmed" a member
of the Established Church.

6o THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

The engagements in drapery establishments do not
necessarily involve a subsequent marriage. They are
essentially more refined, less coarsely practical, and
altogether less binding than the engagements of the
vulgar rich. . These young ladies do not like not to be
engaged — it is so unnatural; and Mr. Kipps was as
easy to get engaged to as one could wish. There are,
from the young lady's point of view, many conveni-
ences in being engaged. You get an escort for church
and walks and so forth. It is not quite the thing to
walk abroad with a "feller," much more to "spoon"
with him, when he is neither one's fiance nor an
adopted brother ; it is considered either a little fast, or
else as savouring of the "walking-out" habits of the
servant girls. Now, such is the sweetness of human
charity, that the shop young lady in England has just
the same horror of doing anything that savours of
the servant girl as the lady journalist, let us say, has
of anything sav^ouring of the shop girl, or the really
quite nice young lady has of anything savouring of
any sort of girl who has gone down into the economic
battlefield to earn herself a living. . . . But the
very deepest of these affairs was still among the shal-
low places of love; at best it was paddling where it is
decreed that men must sink or swim. Of the deep
and dangerous places, and of the huge buoyant lift of
its waves, he tasted nothing. Affairs of clothes and
vanities they were, jealousies about a thing said, flat-
teries and mutual boastings, climaxes in the answering
grasp of hands, the temerarious use of Christian

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 6i

names, culminations in a walk, or a near confidence,
or a little pressure more or less. Close-sitting on a
seat after twilight, with some little fondling, was in-
deed the boldest of a lover's adventures, the utmost
limit of his enterprises in the service of that stark
Great Lady, who is daughter of Uranus and the sea.
The "young ladies" who reigned in his heart came
and went like people in an omnibus : there was the
vehicle, so to speak, upon the road, and they entered
and left it without any cataclysm of emotion. For all
that, this development of the sex interest was continu-
ously very interesting to Kipps, and kept him going as
much as anything through all these servile years.

§6

For a tailpiece to this chapter one may vignette one
of those little affairs.

It is a bright Sunday afternoon ; the scene is a
secluded little seat half-way down the front of the
Leas, and Kipps is four years older than when he
parted from Ann. There is a quite perceptible down
upon his upper lip, and his costume is just as tremen-
dous a "mash" as lies within his means. His collar
is so high that it scars his inaggressive jawbone, and
his hat has a curly brim, his tie shows taste, his trou-
sers are modestly brilliant, and his boots have light
cloth uppers and button at the side. He jabs at the
gravel before him with a cheap cane, and glances side-
ways at Flo Bates, the young lady from the cash desk.

62 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

She is wearing a brilliant blouse and a gaily trimmed
hat. There is an air of fashion about her that might
disappear under the analysis of a woman of the
world, but which is quite sufficient to make Kipps very
proud to be distinguished as her particular "feller,"
and to be allowed at temperate intervals to use her
Christian name.

The conversation is light and gay in the modern
style, and Flo keeps on smiling, good temper being
her special charm.

"Ye see, you don' mean what / mean," he is saying.

"Well, what do you mean?"

"Not what you mean !"

"Well, tell me."

''Ah! That's another story."

Pause. They look meaningly at one another.

"You are a one for being roundabout," says the
lady.

"Well, you're not so plain, you know."

"Not plain?"

"No."

"You don't mean to say Fm roundabout?"

"No. I mean to say . . . though "

Pause.

"Well?"

"You're not a bit plain — you're" (his voice jumps
up to a squeak) "pretty. See?"

"Oh, get outr her voice lifts also — with pleasure.

She strikes at him with her glove, then glances sud-
denly at a ring upon her finger. Her smile disap-

CH. II THE EMPORIUM 63

pears momentarily. Another pause. Eyes meet and
the smile returns.

"I wish I knew " says Kipps.

"Knew ?"

"Where you got that ring."

She lifts the hand with the ring until her eyes jusrt:
show (very prettily) over it. "You'd just like to
know," she says slowly, and smiles still more brightly
with the sense of successful effect.

"I dessay I could guess."

"I dessay you couldn't."

"Couldn't I?"

"No!"

"Guess it in three."

"Not the name."

"Ah!"

"Well, anyhow lemme look at it."

He looks at it. Pause. Giggles, slight struggle,
and a slap on Kipps' coatsleeve. A passerby appears
down the path, and she hastily withdraws her hand.

She glances at the face of the approaching man.
They maintain a bashful silence until he has passed.

CHAPTER III

THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS
§1

Though these services to Venus Epipontia, the
seaside Venus, and these studies in the art of dress,
did much to distract his thoughts and mitigate his
earlier miseries, it would be mere optimism to present
Kipps as altogether happy. A vague dissatisfaction
with life drifted about him and every now and again
enveloped him like a sea fog. During these periods
it was greyly evident that there was something, some-
thing vital in life, lacking. For no earthly reason
that Kipps could discover, he was haunted by a sus-
picion that life was going wrong or had already gone
wrong in some irrevocable way. The ripening self-
consciousness of adolescence developed this into a
clearly felt insufficiency. It was all very well to carry
glov^es, open doors, never say "Miss" to a girl, and
walk "outside," but were there not other things, con-
ceivably even deeper things, before the complete thing
was attained? For example, certain matters of knowl-
edge. He perceived great bogs of ignorance about
him, fumbling traps, where other people, it was al-
leged, real gentlemen and ladies, for example, and

64

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 6s

the clergy, had knowledge and assurance, bogs which
it was sometimes difficult to elude. A girl arrived in
the millinery department who could, she said, speak
French and German. She snubbed certain advances,
and a realisation of inferiority blistered Kipps. But
he tried to pass the thing off as a joke by saying,
"Parlcz-vous Francey," whenever he met her, and
inducing the junior apprentice to say the same.

He even made some dim half-secret experiments
towards remedying the deficiencies he suspected. He
spent five shillings on five serial numbers of a Home
Educator, and bought (and even thought of reading)
a Shakespeare and a Bacon's "Advancement of
Learning" and the poems of Herrick from a chap
who was hard up. He battled with Shakespeare all
one Sunday afternoon, and found the "English Lit-
erature" with which Mr. Woodrow had equipped
him had vanished down some crack in his mind. He
had no doubt it was very splendid stuff, but he
couldn't quite make out what it was all about. There
was an occult meaning, he knew, in literature, and he
had forgotten it. Moreover, he discovered one day,
while taunting the junior apprentice with ignorance,
that his "rivers of England" had also slipped his
memory, and he laboriously restored that fabric of
rote learning: "Ty Wear Tees 'Umber. . . ."

I suppose some such phase of discontent is a normal
thing in every adolescence. The ripening mind seeks
something upon which its will may crystallise, upon
which its discursive emotions, growing more abun-

66 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

dant with each year of life, may concentrate. For
many, though not for all, it takes a religious direc-
tion, but in those particular years the mental atmos-
phere of Folkestone was exceptionally free from any
revivalistic disturbance that might have reached
Kipps' mental being. Sometimes they fall in love. I
have known this uneasiness end in different cases in a
vow to read one book (not a novel) every week, to
read the Bible through in a year, to pass in the Hon-
ours division of the London Matriculation examina-
tion, to become an accomplished chemist, and never
more to tell a lie. It led Kipps finally into Technical
Education as we understand it in the south of Eng-
land.

It was in the last year of his apprenticeship that he
had pursued his researches after that missing qualifi-
cation into the Folkestone Young Men's Association,
where Mr. Chester Coote prevailed. Mr. Chester
Coote was a young man of semi-independent means
who inherited a share in a house agency, read Mrs.
Humphry Ward, and took an interest in social work.
He was a whitish-faced young man with a prominent
nose, pale blue eyes, and a quivering quality in his
voice. He was very active upon committees ; he was
very prominent and useful on all social occasions, in
evidence upon platforms and upon all those semi-
public occasions when the Great descend. He lived
with an only sister. To Kipps and his kind in the
Young Men's Association he read a stimulating paper
on "Self-Help." He said it was the noblest of all our

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 67

distinctive English characteristics, and he was very
much down upon the "over-educated" Germans. At
the close a young German hairdresser made a few
commendatory remarks which developed somehow
into an oration on Hanoverian politics. As he be-
came excited he became guttural and obscure; the
meeting sniggered cheerfully at such ridiculous Eng-
lish, and Kipps was so much amused that he forgot a
private project to ask this Chester Coote how he
might set about a little self-help on his own private
account in such narrow margins of time as the System
of Mr. Shalford spared him. But afterwards in the
night-time it came to him again.

It was a few months later, and after his appren-
ticeship was over and Mr. Shalford had with depre-
ciatory observations taken him on as an improver at
twenty pounds a year, that this question was revived
by a casual article on Technical Education in a morn-
ing paper that a commercial traveller had left behind
him. It played the role of the word in season. Some-
thing in the nature of conv^ersion, a faint sort of con-
centration of purpose, really occurred in him then.
The article was written with penetrating vehemence,
and it stimulated him to the pitch of inquiring about
the local Science and Art Classes, and after he had
told everybody in the shop about it and taken the
advice of all who supported his desperate resolution,
he joined. At first he attended the class in Freehand,
that being the subject taught on early closing night;
and he had already made some progress In that extra-

68 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

ordinary routine of reproducing freehand "copies"
which for two generations had passed with English
people f*or instruction in art, when the dates of the
classes were changed. Thereby just as the March
winds were blowing he was precipitated into the
wood-carving class, and his mind diverted first to this
useful and broadening pursuit, and then to its teacher,

§2

The class in wood-carving was an extremely select
class, conducted at that time by a young lady nanied
Walshingham, and as this young lady was destined
by fortune to teach Kipps a great deal more than
wood carving, it will be well if the reader gets the
picture of her correctly in mind. She was only a year
or so older than he was; she had a pale, intellectual
face, dark grey eyes, and black hair, which she wore
over her forehead in an original and striking way that
she had adopted from a picture by Rossetti in the
South Kensington Museum. She was slender, so that
without ungainliness she had an effect of being tall,
and her hands were shapely and white when they
came into contrast with hands much exercised in roll-
ing and blocking. She dressed in those loose and
pleasant forms and those soft and tempered shades
that arose in England in the socialistic-aesthetic epoch
and remain to this day among us as the badge of those
who read Turgenev's novels, scorn current fiction, and
think on higher planes. I think she was as beautiful

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 69

as most beautiful people, and to Kipps she was alto-
gether beautiful. She had, Kipps learnt, matricu-
lated at London Univ^ersity, an astounding feat to his
imagination ; and the masterly way in which she dem-
onstrated how to prod and worry honest pieces of
wood into useless and unedifying patterns in relief
extorted his utmost admiration.

At first, when Kipps had learnt he was to be taught
by a "girl," he was inclined to resent it, the more so
as Buggins had recently been very strong on the gross
injustice of feminine employment.

"We hav^e to keep wives," said Buggins (though
as a matter of fact he did not keep even one), "and
how are we to do it with a lot of girls coming in to
take the work out of our mouths?"

Afterwards Kipps, in conjunction with Pierce, look-
ed at it from another point of view, and thought it
would be rather a "lark." Finally, when he saw her,
and saw her teaching, and coming nearer to him with
an impressive deliberation, he was breathless with
awe and the quality of her dark, slender femininity.

The class consisted of two girls and a maiden lady
of riper years, friends of Miss Walsingham's, and
anxious rather to support her in an interesting experi-
ment than to become really expert wood-carvers; an
oldish young man with spectacles and a black beard,
who never spoke to any one, and who was evidently
too short-sighted to see his work as a whole; a small
boy who was understood to have a "gift" for wood-
carving; and a lodging-house keeper who "took

70 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

classes" every winter, she told Mr. Kipps, as though
they were a tonic, and "found they did her good."
And occasionally Mr. Chester Coote — refined and
gentlemanly — would come into the class, with or
without papers, ostensibly on committee business, but
in reality to talk to the less attractive one of the two
girl students; and sometimes a brother of Miss
Walshingham's, a slender, dark young man with a
pale face, and fluctuating resemblances to the young
Napoleon, would arrive just at the end of the class-
time to see his sister home.

All these personages impressed Kipps with a sense
of inferiority that in the case of Miss Walshingham
became positively abysmal. The ideas and knowledge
they appeared to have, their personal capacity and
freedom, opened a new world to his imagination.
These people came and went, with a sense of absolute
assurance, against an overwhelming background of
plaster casts, diagrams and tables, benches and a
blackboard — a background that seemed to him to be
saturated with recondite knowledge and the occult
and jealously guarded tips and secrets that constitute
Art and the Higher Life. They went home, he im-
agined, to homes where the piano was played with
distinction and freedom, and books littered the tables,
and foreign languages were habitually used. They
had complicated meals, no doubt — with serviettes.
They "knew etiquette," and how to avoid all the
errors for which Kipps bought penny manuals,
"What to Avoid," "Common Errors in Speaking,"

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 71

and the like. He knew nothing about it all — nothing
whatever; he was a creature of the outer darkness
blinking in an unsuspected light.

He heard them speak easily and freely to one an-
other of examinations, of books and paintings, of
"last year's Academy" — a little contemptuously; and
once, just at the end of the class-time, Mr. Chester
Coote and young Walshingham and the two girls
argued about something or other called, he fancied,
"Vagner" or "Vargner" — they seemed to say it both
ways — and which presently shaped itself more defi-
nitely as the name of a man who made up music.
(Carshot and Buggins weren't in it with them.)
Young Walshingham, it appeared, said something or
other that was an "epigram," and they all applauded
him. Kipps, I say, felt himself a creature of outer
darkness, an inexcusable intruder in an altitudinous
world. When the epigram happened, he first of all
smiled, to pretend he understood, and instantly sup-
pressed the smile to show he did not listen. Then he
became extremely hot and uncomfortable, though no-
body had noticed either phase.

It was clear his only chance of concealing his bot-
tomless baseness was to hold his tongue, and mean-
while he chipped with earnest care, and abased his
soul before the very shadow of Miss Walshingham.
She used to come and direct and advise him, with, he
felt, an effort to conceal the scorn she had for him;
and, indeed, It is true that at first she thought of him
chiefly as the clumsy young man with the red ears.

72 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

And as soon as he emerged from the first effect of
pure and awestricken humility — he was greatly helped
to emerge from that condition to a perception of
human equality by the need the lodging-house keeper
was under to talk while she worked, and as she didn't
like Miss Walshingham and her friends very much,
and the young man with spectacles was deaf, she natu-
rally talked to Kipps — he perceived that he was in a
state of adoration for Miss Walshingham that it
seemed almost a blasphemous familiarity to speak of
us being in love.

This state, you must understand, had nothing to do
with "flirting" or "spooning" and that superficial pas-
sion that flashes from eye to eye upon the leas and
pier — absolutely nothing. That he knew from the
first. Her rather pallid, intelligent young face, be-
neath those sombre clouds of hair, put her in a class
apart; towards her the thought of "attentions" paled
and vanished. To approach such a being, to perform
sacrifices and to perish obviously for her, seemed the
limit he might aspire to, he or any man. For if his
love was abasement, at any rate it had this much of
manliness, that it covered all his sex. It had not yet
come to Kipps to acknowledge any man as his better
in his heart of hearts. When one does that the game
is played and one grows old indeed.

The rest of his sentimental interests vanished alto-
gether in this great illumination. He meditated about
her when he was blocking cretonne; her image was
before his eyes at tea-time, and blotted out the more

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 73

immediate faces, and made him silent and preoccu-
pied, and so careless in his bearing that the junior ap-
prentice, sitting beside him, mocked at and parodied
his enormous bites of bread and butter unreproved.
He became conspicuously less popular on the "fancy"
side, the "costumes" was chilly with him and the "mil-
linery" cutting. But he did not care. An intermit-
tent correspondent with Flo Bates, that had gone on
since she left Mr. Shalford's desk for a position at
Tunbridge "nearer home," and which had roused
Kipps in its earlier stages to unparalleled heights of
epistolatory effort, died out altogether by reason of
his neglect. He heard with scarcely a pang that, as
a consequence perhaps of his neglect, Flo was "carry-
ing on with a chap who managed a farm."

Every Thursday he jabbed and gouged at his
wood, jabbing and gouging intersecting circles and
diamond traceries, and that laboured inane which our
mad world calls ornament, and he watched Miss
Walshingham furtively whenever she turned away.
The circles in consequence were jabbed crooked; and
his panels, losing their symmetry, became compara-
tively pleasing to the untrained eye — and once he
jabbed his finger. He would cheerfully have jabbed
all his fingers if he could have found some means of
using the opening to express himself of the vague
emotions that possessed him. But he shirked conver-
sation just as earnestly as he desired it; he feared that
profound general ignorance of his might appear.

74 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

§3

There came a time when she could not open one
of the class-room windows. The man with the black
beard pored over his chipping heedlessly.

It did not take Kipps a moment to grasp his oppor-
tunity. He dropped his gouge and stepped forward.
"Lem mel' he said.

He could not open the window either 1

"Oh, please don't trouble," she said,

" 'Sno trouble," he gasped.

Still the sash stuck. He felt his manhood was at
stake. He gathered himself together for a tremen-
dous effort, and the pane broke with a snap, and he
thrust his hand into the void beyond.

''There!" said Miss Walshingham, and the glass
fell ringing into the courtyard below.

Then Kipps made to bring his hand back, and felt
the keen touch of the edge of the broken glass at his
wrist. He turned dolefully. "I'm tremendously
sorry," he said in answer to the accusation in Miss
Walshingham's eyes. "I didn't think it would break
like that," — as if he had expected it to break in some
quite different and entirely more satisfactory manner.
The boy with the gift of wood-carving having stared
at Kipps' face for a moment, became involved in a
Laocoon struggle with a giggle.

"You've cut your wrist," said one of the girl
friends, standing up and pointing. She was a pleas-
ant-faced, greatly freckled girl, with a helpful dis-

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 75

position, and she said "You've cut your wrist," as
brightly as if she had been a trained nurse.

KIpps looked down, and saw a swift line of scarlet
rush down his hand. He perceived the other man
student regarding this with magnified eyes. "You
have cut your wrist," said Miss Walshlngham,
and Kipps regarded his damage With greater in-
terest.

"He's cut his wrist," said the maiden lady to the
lodging-house keeper, and seemed in doubt what a

lady should do. "It's " she hesitated at the word

"bleeding," and nodded to the lodging-house keeper
instead.

"Dreadfully," said the maiden lady, and tried to
look and tried not to look at the same time.

"Of course he's cut his wrist," said the lodging-
house keeper, momentarily quite annoyed at Kipps;
and the other young lady, who thought Kipps rather
common, went on quietly with her wood-cutting with
an air of Its being the proper thing to do — though
nobody else seemed to know It.

"You must tie It up," said Miss Walshlngham.

"We must tie It up," said the freckled girl.

"I 'adn't the slightest Idea that window was going
to break like that," said Kipps, with candour. "Nort
the slightest."

He glanced again at the blood on his wrist, and it
seemed to him that It was on the very point of drop-
ping on the floor of that cultured class-room. So he
very neatly licked it off, feeling at the same time for

76 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

his handkerchief. "Oh, don't!" said Miss Walshlng-
ham as he did so, and the girl with the freckles made
a movement of horror. The giggle got the better of
the boy with the gift, and celebrated its triumph by
unseemly noises; in spite of which it seemed to Kipps
at the moment that the act that had made Miss
Walshingham say "Oh, don't!" was rather a desper-
ate and manly treatment of what was after all a credi-
table injury.

"It ought to be tied up," said the lodging-house
keeper, holding her chisel upright in her hand. "It's
a bad cut to bleed like that."

"We must tie it up," said the freckled girl, and
hesitated in front of Kipps. "Have you got a hand-
kerchief?" she said.

"I dunno 'ow I managed not to bring one," said

Kipps. "I Not 'aving a cold I suppose some'ow

1 didn't think "

He checked a further flow of blood.

The girl with the freckles caught Miss Walshing-
ham's eye, and held it for a moment. Both glanced
at Kipps' injury. The boy with the gift, who had
reappeared with a chastened expression from some
noisy pursuit beneath his desk, made the neglected
motions of one who proffers shyly. Miss Walshing-
ham under the spell of the freckled girl's eye pro-
duced a handkerchief. The voice of the maiden lady
could be heard in the background. "I've been through
all the technical education ambulance classes twice,
and I know you go so if it's a vein, and so if it's an

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 77

artery — at least you go 50 for one and so for the
other, whichever it may be; but . . ."

"If you will give me your hand," said the freckled
girl, and proceeded with Miss Walshingham's assist-
ance to bandage Kipps in a most businesslike way.
Yes, they actually bandaged Kipps. They pulled up
his cuffs — happily they were not a very frayed pair —
and held his wrist, and wrapped the soft handkerchief
round it, and tightened the knot together. And Miss
Walshingham's face, the face of that almost divine
Over-human, came close to the face of Kipps.

"We're not hurting you, are we?" she said.

"Not a bit," said Kipps, as he would have said if
they had been sawing his arm off.

"We're not experts, you know," said the freckled
girl.

"I'm sure It's a dreadful cut," said Miss Walshing-
ham.

"It ain't much reely," said Kipps; "and you're
taking a lot of trouble. I'm sorry I broke that
window. I can't think what I could have been do-
mg.

"It isn't so much the cut at the time, It's the poison-
ing afterwards," came the voice of the maiden lady.

"Of course I'm quite willing to pay for the win-
dow," panted Kipps opulently.

"We must make It just as tight as possible, to stop
the bleeding." said the freckled girl.

"I don't think It's much reely," said Kipps. "I'm
awful sorry I broke that window, though."

78 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"Put your finger on the knot, dear," said the freck-
led girl.

"Eh?" said Kipps; "I mean "

Both the young ladies became very intent on the
knot, and Mr. Kipps was very red and very intent
upon the two young ladies.

"Mortified, and had to be sawn off," said the
maiden lady.

"Sawn ofif ?" said the lodging-house keeper.

"Sawn right off," said the maiden lady, and jabbed
at her mangled design.

''There," said the freckled girl, "I think that ought
to do. You're sure it's not too tight?"

"Not a bit," said Kipps.

He met Miss Walshingham's eye, and smiled to
show how little he cared for wounds and pain. "It's
only a little cut," he added.

The maiden lady appeared as an addition to their
group. "You should have washed the wound, dear,"
she said. "I was just telling Miss CoUis." She peer-
ed through her glasses at the bandage. "That doesn't
look quite right," she remarked critically. "You
should have taken the ambulance classes. But I sup-
pose it will have to do. Are you hurting?"

"Not a bit," said Kipps, and he smiled at them all
with the air of a brave soldier in hospital.

"I'm sure it must hurt," said Miss Walshingham.

"Anyhow, you're a very good patient," said the
girl with the freckles.

Mr. Kipps became quite pink. "I'm only sorry I

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 79

broke the window — that's all," he said. "But who
would have thought it was going to break like that?"

Pause.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to go on carving to-
night," said Miss Walshingham.

"I'll try," said Kipps. "It reelly doesn't hurt —
not anything to matter."

Presently Miss Walshingham came to him as he
carved heroically with his hand bandaged in her hand-
kerchief. There was a touch of a novel interest in
her eyes. "I'm afraid you're not getting on very
fast," she said.

The freckled girl looked up and regarded Miss
Walshingham.

"I'm doing a little, anyhow," said Kipps. "I don't
want to waste any time. A feller like me hasn't much
time to spare."

It struck the girls that there was a quality of mod-
est disavowal about that "feller like me." It gave
them a light into this obscure person, and Miss
Walshingham ventured to commend his work as
"promising" and to ask whether he meant to follow
it up. Kipps didn't "altogether know" — "things de-
pended on so much," but if he was in Folkestone next
winter he certainly should. It did not occur to Miss
Walshingham at the time to ask why his progress in
art depended upon his presence in Folkestone. There
was some more questions and answers — they con-
tinued to talk to him for a little time, even when Mr.
Chester Coote had come into the room — and when at

8o THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

last the conversation had died out it dawned upon
Kipps just how much his cut wrist had done for
him.

He went to sleep that night revising that conversa-
tion for the twentieth time, treasuring this and ex-
panding that, and inserting things he might have said
to Miss Walshingham, things he might still say about
himself — in relation more or less explicit to her. He
wasn't quite sure if he wouldn't like his arm to mor-
tify a bit, which would make him interesting, or to
heal up absolutely, which would show the exceptional
purity of his blood.

The affair of the broken window happened late in
April, and the class came to an end in May. In that
interval there were several small incidents and great
developments of emotion. I have done Kipps no jus-
tice if I have made it seem that his face was unsightly.
It was, as the freckled girl pointed out to Hel-en
Walshingham, an "interesting" face, and that aspect
of him which presented chiefly erratic hair and glow-
ing ears ceased to prevail.

They talked him over, and the freckled girl discov-
ered there was something "wistful" in his manner.
They detected a "natural delicacy," and the freckled
girl set herself to draw him out from that time forth.
The freckled girl was nineteen, and very wise and
motherly and benevolent, and really she greatly pre-

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 8i

ferred drawing out Kipps to wood-carving. It was
quite evident to her that Kipps was in love with Helen
Walshingham, and it struck her as a queer and ro-
mantic and pathetic and extremely interesting phe-
nomenon. And as at that time she regarded Helen
as "simply lovely," it seemed only right and proper
that she should assist Kipps in his modest efforts to
place himself in a state of absolute abandon upon her
altar.

Under her sympathetic management the position of
Kipps was presently defined quite clearly. He was
unhappy in his position — misunderstood. He told
her he "didn't seem to get on like" with customers,
and she translated this for him as "too sensitive."
The discontent with his fate in life, the dreadful feel-
ing that education was slipping by him, troubles that
time and usage were glazing over a little, revived to
their old acuteness but not to their old hopelessness.
As a basis for sympathy indeed they were even a
source of pleasure.

And one day at dinner it happened that Carshot
and Buggins fell talking of "these here writers," and
how Dickens had been a labeller of blacking and
Thackeray "an artist who couldn't sell a drawing,"
and how Samuel Johnson had walked to London with-
out any boots, having thrown away his only pair "out
of pride." "It's luck," said Buggins, "to a very large
extent. They just happen to hit on something that
catches on, and there you are I"

"Nice easy life they have of it, too," said Miss

82 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Mergle. "Write just an hour or so, and done for the
day! Almost hke gentlefolks."

"There's more work in it than you'd think," said
Carshot, stooping to a mouthful.

"I wouldn't mind changing, for all that," said Bug-
gins. "I'd like to see one of these here authors mark-
ing off with Jimmy."

"I think they copy from each other a good deal,"
said Miss Mergle.

"Even then (chup, chup, chup)," said Carshot,
"there's writing it out in their own hands."

They proceeded to enlarge upon the literary life,
on its ease and dignity, on the social recognition ac-
corded to those who led it, and on the ample gratifica-
tions their vanity achieved, "Pictures everywhere —
never get a new suit without being photographed —
almost like Royalty," said Miss Mergle.

And all this talk impressed the imagination of
Kipps very greatly. Here was a class that seemed to
bridge the gulf. On the one hand essentially Low,
but by factitious circumstances capable of entering
upon those levels of social superiority to which all true
Englishmen aspire, those levels from which one may
tip a butler, scorn a tailor, and even commune with
those who lead "men" into battle. "Almost like gen-
tlefolks"— that was it ! He brooded over these things
in the afternoon, until they blossomed into day-
dreams. Suppose, for example, he had chanced to
write a book, a well-known book, under an assumed
name, and yet kept on Lvia^ a draper all the time. . .

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 83

Impossible, of course, but suppose — it made quite a
long dream.

And at the next wood-carving class he let it be
drawn from him that his real choice in life was to be a
Nawther — "only one doesn't get a chance."

After that there were times when Kipps had that
pleasant sense that comes of attracting interest. He
was a mute, inglorious Dickens, or at any rate some-
thing of that sort, and they were all taking him at
that. The discovery of this indefinable "something
in" him, the development of which was now painfully
restricted and impossible, did much to bridge the gulf
between himself and Miss Walshingham. He was
unfortunate, he was futile, but he was not "common."
Even now with help . . .? The two girls, and
the freckled girl in particular, tried to "stir him up"
to some effort to do his imputed potentialities justice.
They were still young enough to believe that to nice
and niceish members of the male sex — more especially
when under the stimulus of feminine encouragement
— nothing is finally impossible.

The freckled girl was, I say, the stage manager of
this affair, but Miss Walshingham was the presiding
divinity. A touch of proprietorship came in her eyes
at times when she looked at him. He was hers — un-
conditionally— and she knew it.

To her directly Kipps scarcely ever made a speech.
The enterprising things that he was continually de-
vising to say to her, he usually did not say, or he said
them In a suitably modified form to the girl with the

84 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

freckles. And one day the girl with the freckles
smote him to the heart. She said to him, with the
faintest indication of her head across the class-room
to where her friend reached a cast from the shelf, "I
do think Helen Walshingham is sometimes the most
lovely person in the world. Look at her now !"

Kipps gasped for a moment. The moment length-
ened, and she regarded him as an intelligent young
surgeon might regard an operation without anaes-
thetics.

"You're right," he said, and then looked at her
with an entire abandonment of visage.

She coloured under his glare of silent avowal, and
he blushed brightly.

"I think so, too," he said hoarsely, cleared his
throat, and after a meditative moment proceeded sac-
ramentally with his wood-carving.

"You are wonderful," said the freckled girl to
Miss Walshingham, apropos of nothing, as they went
on their way home together. "He simply adores
you."

"But, my dear, what have I done?" said Helen.

"That's just it," said the freckled girl. "What
have you done?"

And then with a terrible swiftness came the last
class of the course, to terminate this relationship alto-
gether, Kipps was careless of dates, and the thing
came upon him with an effect of abrupt surprise. Just
as his petals were expanding so hopefully, "Finis,"
and the thing was at an end. But Kipps did not fully

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 85

appreciate that the end was indeed and really and
truly the end, until he was back in the Emporium
after the end was over.

The end began practically in the middle of the last
class, when the freckled girl broached the topic of
terminations. She developed the question of just how
he was going on after the class ended. She hoped he
would stick to certain resolutions of self-improvement
he had breathed. She said quite honestly that he
owed it to himself to develop his possibilities. He
expressed firm resolve, but dwelt on difficulties. He
had no books. She instructed him how to get books
from the public library. He was to get a form of
application for a ticket signed by a ratepayer; and he
said "of course," when she said Mr. Shalford would
do that, though all the time he knew perfectly well it
would "never do" to ask Mr. Shalford for anything
of the sort. She explained that she was going to
North Wales for the summer, information he re-
ceived without immediate regret. At intervals he ex-
pressed his intention of going on with wood-carving
when the summer was over, and once he added
"If "

She considered herself extremely delicate not to
press for the completion of that "if "

After that talk there was an interval of languid
wood-carving and watching Miss Walshingham.

Then presently there came a bustle of packing, a
great ceremony of hand-shaking all round by Miss
Collis and the maiden lady of ripe years, and then

86 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Kipps found himself outside the class-room, on the
landing with his two friends. It seemed to him he
had only just learnt that this was the last class of all.
There came a little pause, and the freckled girl sud-
denly went back into the class-room, and left Kipps
and Miss Walshingham alone together for the first
time. Kipps was instantly breathless. She looked at
his face with a glance that mingled sympathy and
curiosity, and held out her white hand.

"Well, good-bye, Mr. Kipps," she said.

He took her hand and held it. "I'd do anything,"
said Kipps, and had not the temerity to add, "for
you." He stopped awkwardly. He shook her hand
and said, "Good-bye."

There was a little pause.

"I hope you will have a pleasant holiday," she said.

"I shall come back to the class next year, anyhow,"
said Kipps valiantly, and turned abruptly to the stairs.

"I hope you will," said Miss Walshingham.

He turned back towards her. "Reelly?" he said.

"I hope everybody will come back."

"I will — anyhow," said Kipps. "You may count
on that," and he tried to make his tones significant.

They looked at one another through a little pause.

"Good-bye," she said.

Kipps lifted his hat. She turned towards the class-
room.

"Well?" said the freckled girl, coming back to-
wards her.

"Nothing," said Helen. "At least — presently."

CH. Ill THE WOOD-CARVING CLASS 87

And she became very energetic about some scattered
tools on a desk.

The freckled girl went out and stood for a moment
at the head of the stairs. When she came back she
looked very hard at her friend. The incident struck
her as important — wonderfully important. It was
unassimilable, of course, and absurd, but there it was,
the thing that is so cardinal to a girl, the emotion, the
subservience, the crowning triumph of her sex. She
could not help feeling that Helen took it, on the
whole, a little too hardly.

CHAPTER IVi

CHITTERLOW
§1

The hour of the class on the following Thursday
found Kipps in a state of nearly incredible despond-
ency. He was sitting with his eyes on the reading
room clock, his chin resting on his fists and his elbows
on the accumulated comic papers that were comic
alas! in vain! He paid no heed to the little man in
spectacles glaring opposite to him, famishing for Fun.
In this place it was he had sat night after night, each
night more blissful than the last, waiting until it
should be time to go to Her ! And then — bliss ! And
now the hour had come and there was no class ! There
would be no class now until next October; it might be
there would never be a class so far as he was con-
cerned again.

It might be there would never be a class again, for
Shalford, taking exception at a certain absent-mind-
edness that led to mistakes and more particularly to
the ticketing of several articles in Kipps' Manchester
window upside down, had been "on to" him for the
past few days in an exceedingly onerous manner. . .

88

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 89

He sighed profoundly, pushed the comic papers
back — they were rent away from him instantly by the
little man in spectacles — and tried the old engravings
of Folkestone in the past, that hang about the room.
But these, too, failed to minister to his bruised heart.
He wandered about the corridors for a time and
watched the library indicator for awhile. Wonderful
thing that ! But it did not hold him for long. People
came and laughed near him and that jarred with him
dreadfully. He went out of the building and a beastly
cheerful barrel organ mocked him in the street. He
was moved to a desperate resolve to go down to the
beach. There it might be he would be alone. The
sea might be rough — and attuned to him. It would
certainly be dark.

"If I 'ad a penny I'm blest if I wouldn't go and
chuck myself off the end of the pier. . . . She'd
never miss me. . . ." He followed a deepening
vein of thought.

"Penny though! It's tuppence," he said after a
space.

He went down Dover Street in a state of profound
melancholia — at the pace and mood as it were of his
own funeral procession — and he crossed at the corner
of Tontine Street heedless of all mundane things.
And there it was that Fortune came upon him, in dis-
guise and with a loud shout, the shout of a person
endowed with an unusually rich, full voice, followed
immediately by a violent blow in the back.

His hat was over his eyes and an enormous weight

90 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

rested on his shoulders and something kicked him in
the back of his calf.

Then he was on all fours in some mud that For-
tune, in conjunction with the Folkestone corporation
and in the pursuit of equally mysterious ends, had
heaped together even lavishly for his reception.

He remained in that position for some seconds
awaiting further developments and believing almost
anything broken before his heart. Gathering at last
that this temporary violence of things in general was
over, and being perhaps assisted by a clutching hand,
he arose, and found himself confronting a figure hold-
ing a bicycle and thrusting forward a dark face in
anxious scrutiny.

"You aren't hurt. Matey?" gasped the figure.

"Was that you 'it me?" said Kipps.

"It's these handles, you know," said the figure with
an air of being a fellow sufferer. "They're too low.
And when I go to turn, if I don't remember, Bif ! —
and I'm in to something."

"Well — you give me a oner in the back — anyhow,"
said Kipps, taking stock of his damages.

"I was coming down hill, you know," explained
the bicyclist. "These little Folkstone hills are a Fair
Treat. It isn't as though I'd been on the level. I
came rather a whop."

"You did that," said Kipps.

"I was back pedalling for all I was worth any-
how," said the bicyclist. "Not that I am worth much
back pedalling."

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 91

He glanced round and made a sudden movement
almost as if to mount his machine. Then he turned
as rapidly to Kipps again, who was now stooping
down, pursuing the tale of his injuries.

"Here's the back of my trouser leg all tore down,"
said Kipps, "and I believe I'm bleeding. You reely
ought to be more careful "

The stranger investigated the damage with a rapid
movement. "Holy Smoke, so you are!" He laid a
friendly hand on Kipps' arm. "I say — look here I

Come up to my diggings and sew it up. I'm .

Of course I'm to blame, and I say " his voice

sank to a confidential friendliness. "Here's a slop.
Don't let on I ran you down. Haven't a lamp, you
know. Might be a bit awkward, for me!^

Kipps looked up towards the advancing policeman.
The appeal to his generosity was not misplaced. He
immediately took sides with his assailant. He stood
up as the representative of the law drew nearer. He
assumed an air which he considered highly suggestive
of an accident not having happened.

"All right," he said, "goon!"

"Right you are," said the cyclist promptly, and led
the way, and then, apparently with some idea of de-
ception, called over his shoulder, "I'm tremendous
glad to have met you, old chap.

"It really isn't a hundred yards," he said after they
had passed the policeman, "it's just round the cor-
ner."

"Of course," said Kipps, limping slightly. "I don't

92 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

want to get a chap into trouble. Accidents will hap-
pen. Still "

"Oh ! rather/ I believe you. Accidents zvill hap-
pen. Especially when you get me on a bicycle." He
laughed. "You aren't the first I've run down not by
any manner of means ! I don't think you can be hurt
much either. It isn't as though I was scorching.
You didn't see me coming. I was back pedalling like
anything. Only naturally it seems to you I must have
been coming fast. And I did all I could to ease off
the bump as I hit you. It was just the treadle I think
came against your calf. But it was All Right of you
about that policeman, you know. That was a Fair
Bit of All Right. Under the Circs, if you'd told him
I was riding it might have been forty bob ! Forty
bob ! I'd have had to tell 'em Time is Money. Just
now for Mr. H. C.

"I shouldn't hav^e blamed you either, you know.
Most men after a bump like that might have been
spiteful. The least I can do is to stand you a needle
and thread. And a clothes brush. It isn't everyone
who'd have taken it like you.

"Scorching! Why if I'd been scorching you'd
have — coming as we did — you'd have been knocked
silly.

"But I tell you, the way you caught on about that
slop was something worth seeing. When I asked you,
I didn't half expect it. Bif ! Right off. Cool as a
cucumber. Had your line at once. I tell you that
there isn't many men would have acted as you have

en. IV CHITTERLOW 93

done, I will say that. You acted like a gentleman
over that slop."

Kipps' first sense of injury disappeared. He limped
along a pace or so behind, making depreciatory noises
in response to these flattering remarks and taking
stock of the very appreciative person who uttered
them.

As they passed the lamps he was visible as a figure
with a slight anterior plumpness, progressing buoy-
antly or knickerbockered legs, with quite enormous
calves, legs that, contrasting with Kipps' own narrow
practice, were even exuberantly turned out at the
knees and toes. A cycling cap was worn very much
on one side, and from beneath it protruded carelessly
straight wisps of dark red hair, and ever and again
an ample nose came into momentary view round the
corner. The muscular cheeks of this person and a
certain generosity of chin he possessed were blue
shaven and he had no moustache. His carriage was
spacious and confident, his gestures up and down the
narrow deserted back street they traversed, were irre-
sistibly suggestive of ownership; a suggestion of
broadly gesticulating shadows were born squatting on
his feet and grew and took possession of the road and
reunited at last with the shadows of the infinite, as
lamp after lamp was passed. Kipps saw by the flick-
ering light of one of them that they were in Little
Fenchurch Street, and then they came round a corner
sharply into a dark court and stopped at the door of a
particularly ramshackle looking little house, held up

94 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

between two larger ones, like a drunken man between
policemen.

The cyclist propped his machine carefully against
the window, produced a key and blew down it sharp-
ly. "The lock's a bit tricky," he said, and devoted
himself for some moments to the task of opening the
door. Some mechanical catastrophe ensued and the
door was open.

"You'd better wait here a bit while I get the lamp,"
he remarked to Kipps; "very likely it isn't filled,"
and vanished into the blackness of the passage.
"Thank God for matches!" he said, and Kipps had
an impression of a passage in the transitory pink flare
and the bicyclist disappearing into a further room.
Kipps was so much interested by these things that for
the time he forgot his injuries altogether.

An interval and Kipps was dazzled by a pink
shaded kerosene lamp. "You go in," said the rid-
haired man, "and I'll bring in the bike," and for a
moment Kipps was alone In the lamp-lit room. He
took in rather vaguely the shabby ensemble of the
little apartment, the round table covered with a torn,
red, glass-stained cover on which the lamp stood,
a mottled looking-glass over the fireplace reflecting
this, a disused gas bracket, an extinct fire, a number
of dusty postcards and memoranda stuck round the
glass, a dusty, crowded paper rack on the mantel with
a number of cabinet photographs, a table littered with
papers and cigarette ash and a syphon of soda water.
Then the cycljst reappeared and Kipps saw his blue-

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 95

shaved, rather animated face and bright-reddish,
brown eyes for the first time. He was a man perhaps
ten years older than Kipps, but his beardless face
made them in a way contemporary.

"You behaved all right about that policeman —
anyhow," he repeated as he came forward.

"I don't see 'ow else I could 'ave done," said Kipps
quite modestly. The cyclist scanned his guest for the
first time and decided upon hospitable details.

"We'd better let that mud dry a bit before we
brush it. Whiskey there is, good old Methusaleh,
Canadian Rye, and there's some brandy that's all
right. Which'll you have?"

"/ dunno," said Kipps, taken by surprise, and then
seeing no other course but acceptance, "well — whis-
key, then."

"Right you are, old boy, and if you'll take my ad-
vice you'll take it neat. I may not be a particular
« judge of this sort of thing, but I do know old Methu-
saleh pretty well. Old Methusaleh — four stars.
That's me ! Good old Harry Chitterlow and good
old Methusaleh. Leave 'em together. Bif ! He's
gone I"

He laughed loudly, looked about him, hesitated
and retired, leaving Kipps in possession of the room
and free to make a more precise examination of its
contents.

§2

He particularly remarked the photographs that
adorned the apartment. They were chiefly photo-

96 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

graphs of ladies, in one case in tights, which Kipps
thought a "bit 'ot," but one represented the bicyclist
in the costume of some remote epoch. It did not take
Kipps long to infer that the others were probably
actresses and that his host was an actor, and the pres-
ence of the half of a large, coloured playbill seemed to
confirm this. A note framed in an Oxford frame that
was a little too large for it, he presently demeaned
himself to read. "Dear Mr. Chitterlow," it ran its
brief course, "if after all you will send the play you
spoke of I will endeavour to read it," followed by a
stylish but absolutely illegible signature, and across
this was written in pencil, "What price, Harry,
now?" And in the shadow by the window was a
rough and rather able sketch of the bicyclist in chalk
on brown paper, calling particular attention to the
curvature of the forward lines of his hull and calves
and the jaunty carriage of his nose, and labelled un-
mistakably "Chitterlow." Kipps thought it "rather
a take-off." The papers on the table by the syphon
were in manuscript. Kipps observed manuscript of a
particularly convulsive and blottesque sort and run-
ning obliquely across the page.

Presently he heard the metallic clamour as if of a
series of irreparable breakages with which the lock of
the front door discharged its function, and then Chit-
terlow reappeared, a little out of breath as if from
running and with a starry labelled bottle in his large,
freckled hand.

"Sit down, old chap," he said, "sit down. I had to

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 97

go out for it after all. Wasn't a solitary bottle left.
However, it's all right now we're here. No, don't sit
on that chair, there's sheets of my play on that. That's
the one — with the broken arm. I think this glass is
clean, but anyhow wash it out with a squizz of syphon
and shy it in the fireplace. Here I I'll do it I Lend
it here!"

As he spoke Mr. Chitterlow produced a corkscrew
from a table drawer, attached and overcame good old
Methusaleh's cork in a style a bartender might envy,
washed out two tumblers in his simple, effectual man-
ner, and poured a couple of inches of the ancient fluid
into each, Kipps took his tumbler, said "Thenks" in
an off-hand way, and after a momentary hesitation
whether he should say "here's to you!" or not, put
it to his lips without that ceremony. For a space
fire in his throat occupied his attention to the ex-
clusion of other matters, and then he discovered
Mr. Chitterlow with an intensely bulldog pipe
alight, seated on the opposite side of the empty
fireplace and pouring himself out a second dose of
whiskey.

"After all," said Mr. Chitterlow, with his eye on
the bottle and a little smile wandering to hide amidst
his larger features, "this accident might have been
worse. I wanted someone to talk to a bit, and I
didn't want to go to a pub, leastways not a Folkstone
pub, because as a matter of fact I'd promised Mrs.
Chitterlow, who's away, not to, for various reasons,
though of course if I'd wanted to I'm just that sort

98 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

I should have all the same, and here we are I
It's curious how one runs up against people out
bicycling!"

"Isn't it!" said Kipps, feeling that the time had
come for him to say something.

"Here we are, sitting and talking like old friends,
and half an hour ago we didn't know we existed.
Leastways we didn't know each other existed. I
might have passed you in the street perhaps and you
might have passed me, and how was I to tell that, put
to the test, you would have behaved as decently as
you have behaved. Only it happened otherwise,
that's all. You're not smoking!" he said. "Have a
cigarette?"

Kipps made a confused reply that took the form of
not minding if he did, and drank another sip of old
Methusaleh in his confusion. He was able to follow
the subsequent course of that sip for quite a long way.
It was as though the old gentleman was brandishing a
burning torch through his vitals, lighting him here
and lighting him there until at last his whole being
was in a glow. Chitterlow produced a tobacco pouch
and cigarette papers and with an interesting paren-
thesis that was a little difficult to follow about some
lady named Kitty something or other who had taught
him the art when he was as yet only what you might
call a nice boy, made Kipps a cigarette, and with a
consideration that won Kipps' gratitude suggested
that after all he might find a little soda water an im-
provement with the whiskey. "Some people like it

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 99

that way," said Chitterlow, and then with voluminous
emphasis, "/ don't."

Emboldened by the weakened state of his enemy
Kipps promptly swallowed the rest of him and had
his glass at once hospitably replenished. He began
to feel he was of a firmer consistency than he com-
monly believed, and turned his mind to what Chitter-
low was saying with the resolve to play a larger part
in the conversation than he had hitherto done. Also
he smoked through his nose quite successfully, an art
he had only very recently acquired.

Meanwhile Chitterlow explained that he was a
playwright, and the tongue of Kipps was unloosened
to respond that he knew a chap, or rather one of their
fellows knew a chap, or at least to be perfectly correct
this fellow's brother did, who had written a play. In
response to Chitterlow's enquiries he could not recall
the title of the play, nor where it had appeared nor
the name of the manager who produced it, though he
thought the title was something about "Love's Ran-
som" or something like that.

"He made five 'undred pounds by it, though," said
Kipps. "I know that."

"That's nothing," said Chitterlow, with an air of
experience that was extremely convincing. "Noth-
ing. May seem a big sum to you, but / can assure you
it's just what one gets any day. There's any amount
of money, an-ny amount, in a good play."

"I dessay," said Kipps, drinking.

"Any amount of money!"

loo THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Chitterlow began a series of Illustrative instances.
He was clearly a person of quite unequalled gift for
monologue. It was as though some conversational
dam had burst upon Kipps, and in a little while he
was drifting along upon a copious rapid of talk about
all sorts of theatrical things by one who knows all
about them, and quite incapable of anticipating
whither that rapid meant to carry him. Presently
somehow they had got to anecdotes about well-known
theatrical managers, little Teddy Bletherskite, artful
old Chumps, and the magnificent Behemoth, "petted
to death, you know, fair sickened, by all these society
women," Chitterlow described various personal en-
counters with these personages, always with modest
self-depreciation, and gave Kipps a very amusing imi-
tation of old Chumps in a state of intoxication. Then
he took two more stiff doses of old Methusaleh in
rapid succession.

Kipps reduced the hither end of his cigarette to a
pulp as he sat "dessaying" and "quite believing" Chit-
terlow In the sagest manner and admiring the easy
way in which he was getting on with this very novel
and entertaining personage. He had another cigar-
ette made for him, and then Chitterlow, assuming by
Insensible degrees more and more of the manner of a
rich and successful playwright being Interviewed by a
young admirer, set himself to answer questions which
sometimes Kipps asked and sometimes Chitterlow,
about the particulars and methods of his career. He
undertook this self-imposed task with great earnest-

CH. IV CHITTERLOW loi

ness and vigour, treating the matter indeed with such
fulness that at times it seemed lost altogether under a
thicket of parentheses, footnotes and episodes that
branched and budded from its stem. But it always
emerged again, usually by way of illustration to its
own degressions. Practically it was a mass of ma-
terial for the biography of a man who had been every-
where and done everything (including the Hon.
Thomas Norgate, which was a Record), and in par-
ticular had acted with great distinction and profit (he
dated various anecdotes, "when I was getting thirty,
or forty or fifty, dollars a week") throughout Amer-
ica and the entire civilised world.

And as he talked on and on in that full, rich, satis-
fying voice he had, and as old Methusaleh, indisputa-
bly a most drunken old reprobate of a whiskey, busied
himself throughout Kipps, lighting lamp after lamp
until the entire framework of the little draper was
illuminated and glowing like some public building on
a festival, behold Chitterlow and Kipps with him and
the room in which they sat, were transfigured ! Chit-
terlow became in very truth that ripe, full man of
infinite experience and humour and genius, fellow of
Shakespeare and Ibsen and Maeterlinck (three names
he placed together quite modestly far above his own)
and no longer ambiguously dressed in a sort of yacht-
ing costume with cycling knickerbockers, but elegantly
if unconventionally attired, and the room ceased to be
a small and shabby room in a Folkestone slum, and
grew larger and more richly furnished, and the fly-

102 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

blown photographs were curious old pictures, and the
rubbish on the walls the most rare and costly bric-a-
brac, and the indisputable paraffin lamp, a soft and
splendid light. A certain youthful heat that to many
minds might have weakened old Methusaleh's starry
claim to a ripe antiquity, vanished in that glamour,
two burnt holes and a claimant darn in the table cloth,
moreover, became no more than the pleasing contra-
dictions natural in the house of genius, and as for
Kipps ! — Kipps was a bright young man of promise,
distinguished by recent quick, courageous proceedings
not too definitely insisted upon, and he had been re-
warded by admission to a sanctum and confidences,
for which the common prosperous, for which "society
women" even, were notoriously sighing in vain.
"Don't want them, my boy; they'd simply play old
Harry with the work, you know ! Chaps outside,
bank clerks and university fellows, think the life's all
ihat sort of thing. Don't you believe 'em. Don't
you believe 'em."

And then !

"Boom. . . Boom. . . Boom. . . Boom. . . .
right in the middle of a most entertaining digession on
flats who join touring companies under the impression
that they are actors, Kipps much amused at their flat-
ness as exposed by Chitterlow.

"Lor'!" said Kipps like one who awakens, "that's
not eleven !"

"Must be," said Chitterlow. "It was nearly ten
when I got that whiskey. It's early yet "

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 103

"All the same I must be going," said Kipps, and
stood up. "Even now — maybe. Fact is — I 'ad no
idea. The 'ouse door shuts at 'arf past ten, you
know. I ought to 'ave thought before."

"Well, if you must go ! I tell you what. I'll come,
too. . . . Why! There's your leg, old man!
Clean forgot it! You can't go through the streets
like that. I'll sew up the tear. And meanwhile have
another whiskey."

"I ought to be getting on now," protested Kipps
feebly, and then Chitterlow was showing him how to
kneel on a chair in order that the rent trouser leg
should be attainable and old Methusaleh on his third
round was busy repairing the temporary eclipse of
Kipps' arterial glow. Then suddenly Chitterlow was
seized with laughter and had to leave off sewing to
tell Kipps that the scene wouldn't make a bad bit of
business in a farcical comedy, and then he began to
sketch out the farcical comedy and that led him to a
digression about another farcical comedy of which
he had written a ripping opening scene which
wouldn't take ten minutes to read. It had something
in it that had never been done on the stage before,
and was yet perfectly legitimate, namely, a man with
a live beetle down the back of his neck trying to seem
at his ease In a roomful of people.

''''They won't lock you out," he said. In a singularly
reassuring tone, and began to read and act what he
explained to be (not because he had written It, but
simply because he knew It was so on account of his

104 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

exceptional experience of the stage) and what Kipps
also quite clearly saw to be, one of the best opening
scenes that had ever been written.

When it was over Kipps, who rarely swore, was in-
spired to say the scene was "damned fine" about six
times over, whereupon as if by way of recognition,
Chitterlow took a simply enormous portion of the in-
spiring antediluvian, declaring at the same time that
he had rarely met a "finer" intelligence than Kipps'
(stronger there might be, that he couldn't say with
certainty as yet, seeing how little after all they had
seen of each other, but a finer never) ; that it was a
shame such a gallant and discriminating intelligence
should be nightly either locked up or locked out at
ten — well, ten thirty then — and that he had half a
mind to recommend old somebody or other (appar-
ently the editor of a London daily paper) to put on
Kipps forthwith as a dramatic critic in the place of the
current incapable.

"I don't think I've ever made up anything for
print," said Kipps; " ever. I'd have a thunder-
ing good try, though, if ever I got a chance. I would
that! I've written window tickets often enough.
Made 'em up and everything. But that's different."

"You'd come to it all the fresher for not having
done it before. And the way you picked up every
point in that scene, mv boy, was a Fair Treat! I tell
you, you'd knock William Archer into fits. Not so
literary, of course, you'd be, but I don't believe in
literary critics any more than in literary playwrights.

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 105

Plays aren't literature — that's just the point they miss.
Plays are plays. No ! That won't hamper you any-
how. You're wasted down here, 1 tell you. Just as I
was, before I took to acting. I'm hanged if T wouldn't
like your opinion on these first two acts of that trag-
edy I'm on to. I haven't told you about that. It
wouldn't take me more than an hour to read. . . ."

Then so far as he could subsequently remember,
Kipps had "another," and then it would seem that
suddenly, regardless of the tragedy, he insisted that
he "reelly must be getting on," and from that point
his memory became irregular. Certain things have
remained quite clearly, and as it is a matter of com-
mon knowledge that intoxicated people forget what
happens to them, it follows that he was not intoxi-
cated. Chitterlow came with him partly to see him
home and partly for a freshener before turning In.
Kipps recalled afterwards very distinctly how in Lit-
tle Fenchurch Street he discovered that he could not
walk straight and also that Chitterlow's needle and
thread in his still unmended trouser leg was making
an annoying little noise on the pavement behind him.
He tried to pick up the needle suddenly by surprise
and somehow tripped and fell and then Chitterlow,
laughing uproariously, helped him up. "It wasn't a
bicycle this time, old boy," said Chitterlow, and that
appeared to them both at the time as being a quite ex-

io6 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

traordlnarlly good joke Indeed. They punched each
other about on the strength of it.

For a time after that KIpps certainly pretended to
be quite desperately drunk and unable to walk and
Chltterlow entered Into the pretence and supported
him. After that Kipps remembered being struck with
the extremely laughable absurdity of going down hill
to Tontine Street In order to go up hill again to the
Emporium, and trying to get that idea into Chltter-
low's head and being unable to do so on account of his
own merriment or Chitterlow's evident Intoxication,
and his next memory after that was of the exterior of
the Emporium, shut and darkened, and, as it were,
frowning at him with all its stripes of yellow and
green. The chilly way In which "Shalford" glittered
in the moonlight printed itself with particular vivid-
ness on his mind. It appeared to Kipps that that es-
tablishment was closed to him for evermore. Those
gilded letters. In spite of appearances, spelt Finis for
him and exile from Folkestone. He would never do
wood-carving, never see Miss Walshingham again.
Not that he had ever hoped to see her again. But this
was the knife, this was final. He had stayed out, he
had got drunk, there had been that row about the
Manchester window dressing only three days ago. . .
In the retrospect he was quite sure that he was per-
fectly sober then and at bottom extremely unhappy,
but he kept a brave face on the matter nevertheless,
and declared stoutly he didn't care If he was locked
out.

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 107

Whereupon Chltterlow slapped him on the back
very hard and told him that was a "Bit of All Right,"
and assured him that when he himself had been a
clerk in Sheffield before he took to acting he had been
locked out sometimes for six nights running.

"What's the result?" said Chitterlow. "I could
go back to that place now, and they'd be glad to have
me. . . . Glad to have me," he repeated, and
then added, "that is to say, if they remember me —
which isn't very likely."

Kipps asked a little weakly, "What am I to do?"

"Keep out," said Chitterlow. "You can't knock
'em up now — that would give you Right away. You'd
better try and sneak in in the morning with the Cat.
That'll do you. You'll probably get in all right in
the morning if nobody gives you away."

Then for a time — perhaps as the result of that slap
in the back — Kipps felt decidedly queer, and acting
on Chitterlow's advice went for a bit of a freshener
upon the Leas. After a time he threw off the tem-
porary queerness and found Chitterlow patting him
on the shoulder and telling him that he'd be all right
now in a minute and all the better for it — which he
was. And the wind having dropped and the night
being now a really very beautiful moonlight night in-
deed, and all before Kipps to spend as he liked and
with only a very little tendency to spin round now
and again to mar its splendour, they set out to walk
the whole length of the Leas to the Sandgate lift and
back, and as they walked Chitterlow spoke first of

io8 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

moonlight transfiguring the sea and then of moon-
light transfiguring faces, and so at last he came to the
topic of Love, and upon that he dwelt a great while,
and with a wealth of experience and illustrative anec-
dote that seemed remarkably pungent and material to
Kipps. He forgot his lost Miss Walshingham and
his outraged employer again. He became as it were
a desperado by reflection.

Chitterlow had had adventures, a quite astonishing
variety of adventures in this direction; he was a man
with a past, a really opulent past, and he certainly
seemed to like to look back and see himself amidst its
opulence.

He made no consecutive history, but he gave Kipps
vivid, momentary pictures of relations and entan-
glements. One moment he was in flight — only too
worthily in flight — before the husband of a Malay
woman in Cape Town. At the next he was having
passionate complications with the daughter of a
clergyman in York. Then he passed to a remarkable
grouping at Seaford.

"They say you can't love two women at once," said

Chitterlow. "But I tell you " He gesticulated

and raised his ample voice. "It's Rot! Rot!''

"I know that," said Kipps.

"Why, when I was in the smalls with Bessie Hop-
per's company there were three." He laughed and
decided to add, "Not counting Bessie, that is."

He set out to reveal Life as it is lived in touring
companies, a quite amazing jungle of interwoven

CH. IV CHITTERLOW 109

"affairs" it appeared to be, a mere amorous winepress
for the crushing of hearts.

"People say this sort of thing's a nuisance and in-
terferes with Work. I tell you it isn't. The Work
couldn't go on without it. They must do it. They
haven't the Temperament if they don't. If they hadn't
the Temperament they wouldn't want to act, if they
have— Bif!"

"You're right," said Kipps. "I see that."

Chitterlow proceeded to a close criticism of certain
historical indiscretions of Mr. Clement Scott respect-
ing the morals of the stage. Speaking in confidence
and not as one who addresses the public, he admitted
regretfully the general truth of these comments. He
proceeded to examine various typical instances that
had almost forced themselves upon him personally,
and with especial regard to the contrast between his
own character towards women and that of the Hon.
Thomas Norgate, with whom it appeared he had once
been on terms of great intimacy.

Kipps listened with emotion to these extraordinary
recollections. They were wonderful to him, they
were incredibly credible. Of course the tumultuous,
passionate course was the way life ran — except in
high-class establishments ! Such things happened in
novels, in plays — only he had been fool enough not to
understand they happened. His share in the conver-
sation was now indeed no more than faint writing in
the margin; Chitterlow was talking quite continu-
ously. He expanded his magnificent voice into huge

no THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

guffaws, he drew It together Into a confidential inten-
sity, It became drawllngly reminiscent, he was frank,
franic with the effect of a revelation, reticent also with
the effect of a revelation, a stupendously gesticulating,
moonlit black figure, wallowing in itself, preaching
Adventure and the Flesh to KIpps. Yet withal shot
with something of sentiment, with a sort of senti-
mental refinement very coarsely and egotistically
done. The Times he had had ! — even before he was
as old as KIpps he had had Innumerable times.

Well, he said with a sudden transition, he had sown
his wild oats — one had to somewhen — and now he
fancied he had mentioned It earlier In the evening, he
was happily married. She was, he indicated, a "born
lady." Her father was a prominent lawyer, a solici-
tor In Kentish Town, "^done a lot of public house
business"; her mother was second cousin to the wife
of Abel Jones, the fashionable portrait painter — "al-
most Society people In a way." That didn't count
with Chltterlow. He was no snob. What did count
was that she possessed, what he ventured to assert
without much fear of contradiction, was the very
finest, completely untrained contralto voice in all the
world. ("But to hear It properly," said Chltterlow,
"you want a Big Hall.") He became rather vague
and jerked his head about to Indicate when and how
he had entered matrimony. She was, it seemed, "away
with her people." It was clear that Chltterlow did
not get on with these people very well. It would
seem they failed to appreciate his playwright, regard-

ctt. IV CHITTERLOW m

ing It as an unremuneratlve pursuit, whereas as he and
Kipps knew, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice
would presently accrue. Only patience and persist-
ence were needful.

He went off at a tangent to hospitality. Kipps
must come down home with him. They couldn't wan-
der about all night, with a bottle of the right sort pi-
ning at home for them. "You can sleep on the sofa.
You won't be worried by broken springs anyhow, for
I took 'em all out myself two or three weeks ago. I
don't see what they even put 'em in for. It's a point
I know about. I took particular notice of it when I
was with Bessie Hopper. Three months we were and
all over England, North Wales and the Isle of Man,
and I never struck a sofa in diggings anywhere that
hadn't a broken spring. Not once — all the time."

He added almost absently: "It happens Hke that
at times."

They descended the slant road towards Harbour
Street and went on past the Pavilion Hotel.

§4

They came Into the presence of old Methusaleh
again, and that worthy under Chitterlow's direction
at once resumed the illumination of Kipps' interior
with the conscientious thoroughness that distinguished
him. Chitterlow took a tall portion to himself with
an air of asbestos, lit the bulldog pipe again, and
lapsed for a space into meditation, from which Kipps

.112 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

i-oused him by remarking that he expected "an acter
'as a lot of ups and downs like, now and then."

At which Chitterlow seemed to bestir himself.
"Ra-ther," he said. "And sometimes it's his own
fault and sometimes it isn't. Usually it is. If It isn't
one thing It's another. If it Isn't the manager's wife
it's bar-bragging. I tell you things happen at times.
I'm a fatalist. The fact is Character has you. You
can't get away from it. You may think you do, but
you don't."

He reflected for a moment. "It's that what makes
tragedy Psychology really. It's the Greek irony —
Ibsen and — all that. Up to date."

He emitted this exhaustive summary of high-toned
modern criticism as If he was repeating a lesson while
thinking of something else, but it seemed to rouse him
as It passed his lips, by Including the name of Ibsen.

He became interested In telling Kipps, who was in-
deed open to any information whatever about this
quite novel name, exactly where he thought Ibsen fell
short, points where it happened that Ibsen was defec-
tive just where it chanced that he, Chitterlow, was
strong. Of course he had no desire to place himself
in any way on an equality with Ibsen ; still the fact
remained that his own experience In England and
America and the colonies was altogether more exten-
sive than Ibsen could have had. Ibsen had probably
never seen "one decent bar scrap" in his life. That,
of course, was not Ibsen's fault or his own merit, but
there the thing was. Genius, he knew, was supposed

CH.iv CHITTERLOW 113

to be able to do anything or to do without anything;
still he was now inclined to doubt that. He had a
play in hand that might perhaps not please William
Archer — whose opinion, after all, he did not value
as he valued Kipps' opinion — but which he thought
was at any rate as well constructed as anything Ibsen
ever did.

So with infinite deviousness Chitterlow came at last
to his play. He decided he would not read it to
Kipps, but tell him about it. This was the simpler
because much of it was still unwritten. He began to
explain his plot. It was a complicated plot and all
about a nobleman who had seen everything and done
everything and knew practically all that Chitterlow
knew about women ; that is to say, "all about women"
and suchlike matters. It warmed and excited Chit-
terlow. Presently he stood up to act a situation —
which could not be explained. It was an extremely
vivid situation.

Kipps applauded the situation vehemently. "Tha's
dam' fine, "said the new dramatic critic, quite familiar
with his part now, striking the table with his fist and
almost upsetting his third portion (in the second
series) of old Methusaleh. "Tha's dam' fine, Chit'-
low!"

"You see it?" said Chitterlow, with the last ves-
tiges of that incidental gloom disappearing. "Good,
old boy ! I thought you'd see it. But it's just the sort
of thing the literary critic can't see. However, It's
only a beginning "

114 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

He replenished Kipps and proceeded with his ex-
position.

In a httle while it was no longer necessary to give
that over-advertised Ibsen the purely conventicwial
precedence he had hitherto had. Kipps and Chitter-
low were friends and they could speak, frankly and
openly of things not usually admitted. "Any 'ow,"
said Kipps, a little irrelevantly and speaking over the
brim of the replenishment, "what you read jus' now
was dam' fine. Nothing can't alter that."

He perceived a sort of faint, buzzing vibration
about things that was very nice and pleasant and with
a little care he had no difficulty whatever in putting
his glass back on the table. Then he perceived Chit-
terlow was going on with the scenario, and then that
old Methusaleh had almost entirely left his bottle.
He was glad there was so little more Methusaleh to
drink because that would prevent his getting drunk.
He knew that he was not now drunk, but he knew
that he had had enough. He was one of those who
always know when they have had enough. He tried
to interrupt Chitterlow to tell him this, but he could
not get a suitable opening. He doubted whether
Chitterlow might not be one of those people who did
not know when they had had enough. He discovered
that he disapproved of Chitterlow. Highly. It
seemed to him that Chitterlow went on and on like a
river. For a time he was inexplicably and quite un-
justly cross with Chitterlow and wanted to say to him,
"you got the gift of the gab," but he only got so far

CH.iv CHITTERLOW 115

as to say "the gift," and then Chltterlow thanked him
and said he was better than Archer any day. So he
eyed Chitterlow with a baleful eye until it dawned
upon him that a most extraordinary thing was talcing
place, Chitterlow kept mentioning someone named
Kipps. This presently began to perplex Kipps very
greatly. Dimly but decidedly he perceived this was
wrong.

"Look 'ere," he said suddenly, "what Kipps?"

"This chap Kipps I'm telling you about."

"What chap Kipps you're telling which about?"

"I told you."

Kipps struggled with a difficulty in silence for a
space. Then he reiterated firmly, "What chap
Kipps?"

"This chap in my play — man who kisses the girl."

"Never kissed a girl," said Kipps; "leastwise "

and subsided for a space. He could not remember
whether he had kissed Ann or not — he knew he had
meant to. Then suddenly in a tone of great sadness
and addressing the hearth he said, "'My name's
Kipps."

"Eh?" said Chitterlow.

"Kipps," said Kipps, smiling a little cynically.

"What about him?"

"He's me." He tapped his breastbone with his
middle finger to Indicate his essential self.

He leant forward very gravely towards Chitter-
low. "Look 'ere, Chit'low," he said, "you haven't
no business putting my name into play. You mustn't

ii6 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

do things like that. You'd lose me my crib, right
away." And they had a little argument — so far as
Kipps could remember. Chitterlow entered upon a
general explanation of how he got his names. These,
he had for the most part got out of a newspaper that
was still, he believed, "lying about." He even made
to look for it, and while he was doing so Kipps went
on with the argument, addressing himself more par-
ticularly to the photograph of the girl in tights. He
said that at first her costume had not commended her
to him, but now he perceived she had an extremely
sensible face. He told her she would like Buggins if
she met him ; he could see she was just that sort. She
would admit, all sensible people would admit, that
using names in plays was wrong. You could, for ex-
ample, have the law of him.

He became confidential. He explained that he was
already in sufficient trouble for stopping out all night
without having his name put in plays. He was cer-
tain to be In the deuce of a row, the deuce of a row.
Why had he done it? Why hadn't he gone at ten?
Because one thing leads to another. One thing, he
generalized, always does lead to another.

He was trying to tell her that he was utterly un-
worthy of Miss Walshingham, when Chitterlow gave
up the search and suddenly accused him of being
drunk and talking "Rot ."

CHAPTER y

"swapped"

§1

He awoke on the thoroughly comfortable sofa that
had had all Its springs removed, and although he had
certainly not been Intoxicated, he awoke with what
Chltterlow pronounced to be, quite indisputably, a
Head and a Mouth. He had slept in his clothes and
he felt stiff and uncomfortable all over, but the head
and mouth Insisted that he must not bother over little
things like that. In the head was one large, angular
Idea that It was physically painful to have there. If
he moved his head the angular Idea shifted about in
the most agonising way. This idea was that he had
lost his situation and was utterly ruined and that It
really mattered very little. Shalford was certain to
hear of his escapade, and that coupled with that row
about the Manchester window 1

He raised himself Into a sitting position under
Chitterlow's urgent encouragement.

He submitted apathetically to his host's attentions.
Chltterlow, who admitted being a "bit off it" himself
and In need of an egg-cupful of brandy, just an egg-
cupful neat, dealt with that Head and Mouth as a

"7

ii8 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

mother might deal with the fall of an only child. He
compared it with other Heads and Mouths that he
had met, and in particular to certain experienced by
the Hon. Thomas Norgate. "Right up to the last,"
said Chitterlow, "he couldn't stand his liquor. It
happens like that at times." And after Chitterlow
had pumped on the young beginner's head and given
him some anchovy paste piping hot on buttered toast,
which he preferred to all the other remedies he had
encountered, Kipps resumed his crumpled collar,
brushed his clothes, tacked up his knee, and prepared
to face Mr. Shalford and the reckoning for this wild,
unprecedented night, the first "night out" that ever
he had taken.

Acting on Chitterlow's advice to have a bit of a
freshener before returning to the Emporium, Kipps
walked some way along the Leas and back and then
went down to a shop near the Harbour to get a cup
of coffee. He found that extremely reinvigorating,
and he went on up the High Street to face the inevita-
ble terrors of the office, a faint touch of pride in his
depravity tempering his extreme self-abasement.
After all, it was not an unmanly headache; he had
been out all night, and he had been drinking and his
physical disorder was there to witness the fact. If it
wasn't for the thought of Shalford he would have
been even a proud man to discover himself at last in
such a condition. But the thought of Shalford was
very dreadful. He met two of the apprentices snatch-
ing a walk before shop began. At the sight of them

CH.v "SWAPPED" 119

he pulled his spirits together, put his hat back from
his pallid brow, thrust his hands into his trouser
pockets and adopted an altogether more dissipated
carriage ; he met their innocent faces with a wan smile.
Just for a moment he was glad that his patch at the
knee was, after all, visible and that some at least of
the mud on his clothes had refused to move at Chlt-
terlow's brushing. What wouldn't they think he had
been up to? He passed them without speaking. He
could imagine how they regarded his back. Then he
recollected Mr. Shalford.

The deuce of a row certainly and perhaps 1

He tried to think of plausible versions of the affair.
He could explain he had been run down by rather a
wild sort of fellow who was riding a bicycle, almost
stunned for the moment (even now he felt the effects
of the concussion in his head) and had been given
whiskey to restore him, and "the fact is, sir" — with
an upward inflection of the voice, an upward inflec-
tion of the eyebrows and an air of its being the last
thing one would have expected whiskey to do, the
manifestation indeed of a practically unique physio-
logical weakness — "it got into my 'ed!"

Put like that it didn't look so bad.

He got to the Emporium a little before eight and
the housekeeper with whom he was something of a
favourite ("There's no harm in Mr. Kipps," she used
to say) seemed to like him if anything better for hav-
ing broken the rules and gave him a piece of dry
toast and a good hot cup of tea.

I20 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"I suppose the G. V. " began Kipps.

"He knows," said the housekeeper.

He went down to shop a httle before time, and
presently Booch summoned him to the presence.

He emerged from the private office after an inter-
val of ten minutes.

The junior clerk scrutinised his visage. Buggins
put the frank question.

Kipps answered with one word.

"Swapped!" said Kipps.

§2

Kipps leant against the fixtures with his hands in
his pockets and talked to the two apprentices under
him.

"I don't care if I am swapped," said Kipps. "I
been sick of Teddy and his System some time. I was
a good mind to chuck it when my time was up. Wish
I 'ad now."

Afterwards Pierce came round and Kipps repeated
this.

"What's it for?" said Pierce. "That row about
the window tickets?"

"No fear!" said Kipps and sought to convey a per-
spective of splendid depravity. "I wasn't in las'
night," he said and made even Pierce, "man about
town" Pierce, open his eyes.

"Why! where did you get to?" asked Pierce.

He conveyed that he had been "fair round the
town." "With a Nactor chap, I know."

CH. V ''SWAPPED" 121

"One can't always be living like a curit," he said.

"No fear," said Pierce, trying to play up to him.

But Kipps had the top place in that conversation.

"My Lor' !" said Kipps, when Pierce had gone,
"but wasn't my mouth and 'ed bad this morning be-
fore I 'ad a pick-me-up!"

"Whadjer'ave?"

"Anchovy on 'ot buttered toast. It's the very best
pick-me-up there is. You trust me, Rodgers. I never
take no other and I don't advise you to. See?"

And when pressed for further particulars, he said
again he had been "fair all round the town, with a
, Nactor chap" he knew. They asked curiously all he
had done and he said, "Well, what do you think?"
And when they pressed for still further details he said
there were things little boys ought not to know and
laughed darkly and found them some huckaback to
roll.

And in this manner for a space did Kipps fend off
the contemplation of the "key of the street" that Shal-
ford had presented him.

§3
This sort of thing was all very well when junior
apprentices were about, but when Kipps was alone
with himself it served him not at all. He was un-
comfortable inside and his skin was uncomfortable,
and Head and Mouth palliated perhaps, but certainly
not cured, were still with him. He felt, to tell the
truth, nasty and dirty and extremely disgusted with

122 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

himself. To work was dreadful and to stand still
and think still more dreadful. His patched knee re-
proached him. These were the second best of his
three pairs of trousers, and they had cost him thir-
teen and sixpence. Practically ruined they were. His
dusting pair was unfit for shop and he would have to
degrade his best. When he was under inspection he
affected the slouch of a desperado, but directly he
found himself alone, this passed insensibly into the
droop.

The financial aspect of things grew large before
him. His whole capital in the world was the sum of
five pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank and four
and sixpence cash. Besides there would be two
months' screw. His little tin box upstairs was no
longer big enough for his belongings ; he would have
to buy another, let alone that it was not calculated to
make a good Impression in a new "crib." Then there
would be paper and stamps needed In some abundance
for answering advertisements and railway fares when
he went "crib hunting." He would have to write let-
ters, and he never wrote letters. There was spelling
for example to consider. Probably if nothing turned
up before his month was up he would have to go
home to his Uncle and Aunt.

How would they take It? ...

For the present at any rate he resolved not to write
to them.

Such disagreeable things as this It was that lurked
below the fair surface of Kipps' assertion, 'Tve been

CH.v "SWAPPED" 123

wanting a chance. If 'e 'adn't swapped me, I should
very likely 'ave swapped 'im."

In the perplexed privacies of his own mind he
could not understand how everything had happened.
He had been the Victim of Fate, or at least of one as
inexorable — Chitterlow. He tried to recall the
successive steps that had culminated so disastrously.
They were diflScult to recall.

Buggins that night abounded in counsel and remin-
iscence.

"Curious thing," said Buggins, "but every time
I've had the swap I've never believed I should get
another Crib — never. But I have," said Buggins.
"Always. So don't lose heart, whatever you do. . . .

"Whatever you do," said Buggins, "keep hold of
your collars and cuffs — shirts if you can, but collars
anyhow. Spout them last. And anyhow, it's sum-
mer ! — you won't want your coat. . . . You got
a good umbrella.

"You'll no more get a shop from New Romney,
than — anything. Go straight up to London, get the
cheapest room you can find — and hang out. Don't
eat too much. Many a chap's put his prospects In his
stomach. Get a cup o' coffee and a slice — egg if you
like — but remember you got to turn up at the Ware-
house tidy. The best places now, I believe, are the
old cabmen's eating houses. Keep your watch and
chain as long as you can.

"There's lots of shops going," said Buggins.
"Lots!"

124 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk.i

And added reflectively, "But not this time of year
perhaps."

He began to recall his own researches. " 'Stonish-
ing lot of chaps you see," he said. "All sorts. Look
like Dukes some of 'em. High hat. Patent boots.
Frock coat. All there. All right for a West End
crib. Others — Lord 1 It's a caution, Kipps. Boots
been inked in some reading rooms — / used to write
in a Reading Room in Fleet Street, regular penny
club — hat been wetted, collar frayed, tail coat but-
toned up, black chest-plaster tie — spread out. Shirt,

you know, gone " Buggins pointed upward with

a pious expression.

"No shirt, I expect?"

"Eat it," said Buggins.

Kipps meditated. "I wonder where old Merton
is," he said at last. "I often wondered about 'im."

§4

It was the morning following Kipps' notice of dis-
missal that Miss Walshingham came into the shop.
She came in with a dark, slender lady, rather faded,
rather tightly dressed, whom Kipps was to know some
day as her mother. He discovered them in the main
shop at the counter of the ribbon department. He
had come to the opposite glove counter with some
goods enclosed in a parcel that he had unpacked in
his own department. The two ladies were both bent
over a box of black ribbon.

cH.v "SWAPPED" 125

He had a moment of tximultuous hesitations. The
etiquette of the situation was incomprehensible. He
put down his goods very quietly and stood hands on
counter, staring at these two ladies. Then, as Miss
Walshingham sat back, the instinct of flight seized
him. . . .

He returned to his Manchester shop wildly agi-
tated. Directly he was out of sight of her he wanted
to see her. He fretted up and down the counter, and
addressed some snappish remarks to the apprentice
in the window. He fumbled for a moment with a
parcel, untied it needlessly, began to tie it up again
and then bolted back again into the main shop. He
could hear his own heart beating.

The two ladies were standing in the manner of
those who have completed their purchases and are
waiting for their change. Mrs. Walshingham re-
garded some remnants with impersonal interest;
Helen's eyes searched the shop. They distinctly lit
up when they discovered Kipps.

He dropped his hands to the counter by habit and
stood for a moment regarding her awkwardly. What
would she do ? Would she cut him ? She came across
the shop to him.

"How are you, Mr, Kipps?" she said, In her clear,
distinct tones, and she held out her hand.

"Very well, thank you," said Kipps; "how are
you?"

She said she had been buying some ribbon.

He became aware of Mrs. Walshingham very

126 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk.i

much surprised. This checked something allusive
about the class and he said instead that he supposed
she was glad to be having her holidays now. She
said she was, it gave her more time for reading and
that sort of thing. He supposed that she would be
going abroad and she thought that perhaps they
would go to Knocke or Bruges for a time.

Then came a pause and Kipps' soul surged within
him. He wanted to tell her he was leaving and would
never see her again. He could find neither words nor
voice to say it. The swift seconds passed. The girl
in the ribbons was handing Mrs. Walshingham her
change. "Well," said Miss Walshingham, "Good-
bye," and gave him her hand again.

Kipps bowed over her hand. His manners, his
counter manners, were the easiest she had ever seen
upon him. She turned to her mother. It was no
good now, no good. Her mother ! You couldn't say
a thing like that before her mother ! All was lost but
politeness. Kipps rushed for the door. He stood at
the door bowing with infinite gravity, and she smiled
and nodded as she went out. She saw nothing of the
struggle within him, nothing but a satisfactory emo-
tion. She smiled like a satisfied goddess as the in-
cense ascends.

Mrs. Walshingham bowed stiffly and a little awk-
wardly.

He remained holding the door open for some sec-
onds after they had passed out, then rushed suddenly
to the back of the "costume" window to watch them

CH.v "SWAPPED" 127

go down the street. His hands tightened on the win-
dow rack as he stared. Her mother appeared to be
asking discreet questions. Helen's bearing suggested
the off-hand replies of a person who found the world
a satisfactory place to live in. "Really, Mumsie, you
cannot, expect me to cut my own students dead," she
was in fact saying.

They vanished round Henderson's corner.

Gone ! And he would never see her again — never I

It was as though someone had struck his heart with
a whip. Never! Never! Never! And she didn't
know ! He turned back from the window and the
department with its two apprentices was impossible.
The whole glaring world was insupportable.

He hesitated and made a rush head down for the
cellar that was his Manchester warehouse. Rodgers
asked him a question that he pretended not to hear.

The Manchester warehouse was a small cellar
apart from the general basement of the building and
dimly lit by a small gas flare. He did not turn that
up, but rushed for the darkest corner, where on the
lowest shelf the sale window tickets were stored. He
drew out the box of these with trembling hands and
upset them on the floor, and so having made himself
a justifiable excuse for being on the ground, with his
head well in the dark, he could let his poor bursting
little heart have its way with him for a space.

And there he remained until the cry of "Kipps!
Forward!" summoned him once more to face the
world.

CHAPTER VI

THE UNEXPECTED

Now in the slack of that same day, after the mid-
day dinner and before the coming of the afternoon
customers, this disastrous Chitterlow descended upon
Kipps with the most amazing coincidence in the
world. He did not call formally, entering and de-
manding Kipps, but privately, in a confidential and
mysterious manner.

Kipps was first aware of him as a dark object bob-
bing about excitedly outside the hosiery window. He
was stooping and craning and peering in the endea-
vour to see into the interior between and over the
socks and stockings. Then he transferred his atten-
tion to the door, and after a hovering scrutiny, tried
the baby-linen display. His movements and gestures
suggested a suppressed excitement.

Seen by daylight, Chitterlow was not nearly such a
magnificent figure as he had been by the subdued noc-
turnal lightings and beneath the glamour of his own
interpretation. The lines were the same indeed, but
the texture was different. There was a quality about

128

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 129

the yachting cap, an Indefinable finality of dustiness, a
shiny finish on all the salient surfaces of the reefer
coat. The red hair and the profile, though still forci-
ble and fine, were less In the quality of Michael An-
gelo and more In that of the merely picturesque. But
it was a bright brown eye still that sought amidst the
interstices of the baby-linen.

KIpps was by no means anxious to Interview Chlt-
terlow again. If he had felt sure that Chltterlow
would not enter the shop he would have hid In the
warehouse until the danger was past, but he had no
Idea of Chltterlow's limitations. He decided to keep
up the shop In the shadows until Chltterlow reached
the side window of the Manchester department and
then to go outside as If to Inspect the condition of the
window and explain to him that things were unfav-
ourable to Immediate intercourse. He might tell him
he had already lost his situation. . . .

"Ullo, Chlt'Iow," he said, emerging.

"Very man I want to see," said Chltterlow, shak-
ing with vigour. "Very man I want to see." He
laid a hand on KIpps' arm. "How old are you,
KIpps?"

"One and twenty," said KIpps. "Why?"

"Talk about coincidences! And your name now?
Wait a minute." He held out a finger, "/j it Ar-
thur?"

"Yes," said KIpps.

"You're the man," said Chltterlow.

"Whatman?"

130 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"It's about the thickest coincidence I ever struck,"
said Chitterlow, plunging his extensive hand into his
breast coat pocket. "Half a jiff and I'll tell you your
mother's Christian name." He laughed and strug-
gled with his coat for a space, produced a washing
book and two pencils, which he deposited in his side
pocket; then in one capacious handful, a bent but by
no means finally disabled cigar, the rubber proboscis
of a bicycle pump, some twine and a lady's purse, and
finally a small pocket book, and from this, after drop-
ping and recovering several visiting cards, he ex-
tracted a carelessly torn piece of newspaper. "Eu-
phemia," he read and brought his face close to Kipps'.
"Eh?" He laughed noisily. "It's about as fair a
Bit of All Right as anyone could have — outside a
coincidence play. Don't say her name wasn't Euphe-
mia, Kipps, and spoil the whole blessed show."

"Whose name — Euphemia?" asked Kipps.

"Your mother's."

"Lemme see what it says on the paper."

Chitterlow handed him the fragment and turned
away. "You may say what you like," he said, ad-
dressing a vast, deep laugh to the street generally.

Kipps attempted to read. " 'WADDY or KIPPS.
If Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps, the son of Mar-
garet Euphemia Kipps, who

Chitterlow's finger swept over the print. "I went
down the column and every blessed name that seemed
to fit my play I took. I don't believe in made-up
names. As I told you. I'm all with Zola in that.

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 13 1

Documents whenever you can. I like 'em hot and
real. See? Who was Waddy ?"

"Never heard his name."

"Not Waddy?"

"No I"

Kipps tried to read again and abandoned the at-
tempt. "What does it mean?" he said. "I don't
understand."

"It means," said Chitterlow, with a momentary
note of lucid exposition, "so far as I can make out
that you're going to strike it Rich. Never mind about
the Waddy — that's a detail. What does it usually
mean? You'll hear of something to your advan-
tage— very well. I took that newspaper up to get my
names by the merest chance. Directly I saw it again
and read that — I knew it was you. I believe in co-
incidences. People say they don't happen. / say they
do. Everything's a coincidence. Seen properly.
Here you are. Here's one ! Incredible ? Not a bit
of it! See? It's you ! Kipps! Waddy be damned!
It's a Mascot. There's luck in my play. Bif! You're
there. I'm there. Fair in it! Snap!" And he dis-
charged his lingers like a pistol. "Never you mind
about the 'Waddy.' "

"Eh?" said Kipps, with a nervous eye on Chitter-
low's fingers.

"You're all right," said Chitterlow; "you may bet
the seat of your only breeches on that ! Don't you
worry about the Waddy — that's as clear as day.
You're about as right side up as a billiard ball — what-

132 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

ever you do. Don't stand there gaping, man ! Read
the paper if you don't believe me. Read it!"

He shook it under Kipps' nose.

Kipps became aware of the second apprentice
watching them from the shop. His air of perplexity
gave place to a more confident bearing.

" 'who was born at East Grinstead.' I cer-
tainly was born there. I've 'eard my Aunt say-

"I knew it," said Chitterlow, taking hold of one
edge of the paper and bringing his face close along-
side Kipps'.

" * on September the first, eighteen hundred

and seventy-eight ' "

''That's all right," said Chitterlow. "It's all, all
right, and all you have to do is write to Watson and
Bean and get it "

••Get what?"

"Whatever it is."

Kipps sought his moustache. "You'd write ?" he
asked.

"Ra-ther."

"But what d'you think it is?"

"That's the fun of it!" said Chitterlow, taking
three steps in some as yet uninvented dance, "That's*
where the joke comes in. It may be anything — it may
be a million. If so! Where does little Harry come
in? Eh?"

Kipps was trembling slightly. "But " he said,

and thought. "If you was me " he began.

"About that Waddy ?"

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 133

He glanced up and saw the second apprentice dis-
appear with amazing swiftness from behind the goods
in the window.

'What?" asked Chitterlow, but he never had an
answer.

"LorM There's the guv'nor!" said Kipps, and
made a prompt dive for the door.

He dashed in only to discover that Shalford, with
the junior apprentice in attendance, had come to mark
off remnants of Kipps' cotton dresses and was de-
manding him. "Hullo, Kipps," he said, "out-
side ?"

"Seein'if the window was straight, Sir," said Kipps.

"Umph!" said Shalford.

For a space Kipps was too busily employed to think
at all of Chitterlow or the crumpled bit of paper in
his trouser pocket. He was, however, painfully
aware of a suddenly disconcerted excitement at large
in the street. There came one awful moment when
Chitterlow's nose loomed interrogatively over the
ground glass of the department door, and his bright,
little, red-brown eye sought for the reason of Kipps'
disappearance, and then it became evident that he saw
the high light of Shalford's baldness and grasped the
situation and went away. And then Kipps (with that
advertisement in his pocket) was able to come back to
the business in hand.

He became aware that Shalford had asked a ques-
tion. "Yessir, nosir, rightsir. I'm sorting up zephyrs
to-morrow. Sir," said Kipps.

134 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Presently he had a moment to himself again, and,
taking up a safe position behind a newly unpacked
pile of summer lace curtains, he straightened out the
piece of paper and reperused it. It was a little per-
plexing. That "Arthur Waddy or Arthur Kipps" —
did that imply two persons or one? He would ask
Pierce or Buggins. Only

It had always been impressed upon him that there
was something demanding secrecy about his mother.

"Don't you answer no questions about your moth-
er," his aunt had been wont to say. "Tell them you
don't know, whatever it is they ask you."

"Now this ?"

Kipps' face became portentously careful and he
tugged at his moustache, such as it was, hard.

He had always represented his father as being a
"gentleman farmer." "It didn't pay," he used to say
with a picture in his own mind of a penny magazine
aristocrat prematurely worn out by worry. "I'm a
Norfan, both sides," he would explain, with the air of
one who had seen trouble. He said he lived with his
uncle and aunt, but he did not say that they kept a toy
shop, and to tell anyone that his uncle had been a
butler — a servant! — would have seemed the maddest
of indiscretions. Almost all the assistants in the Em-
porium were equally reticent and vague, so great is
their horror of "Lowness" of any sort. To ask about
this "Waddy or Kipps" would upset all these little
fictions. He was not, as a matter of fact, perfectly
clear about his real status in the world (he was not,

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 135

as a matter of fact, perfectly clear about anything) ,
but he knew that there was a quality about his status
that was — detrimental.

Under the circumstances ?

It occurred to him that it would save a lot of trou-
ble to destroy the advertisement there and then.

In which case he would have to explain to Chitter-
low!

"Eng!" said Mr. Kipps.

"Kipps," cried Carshot, who was shopwalking ;
"Kipps, Forward!"

He thrust back the crumpled paper into his pocket
and sallied forth to the customers.

"I want," said the customer, looking vaguely about
her through glasses, "a little bit of something to cover
a little stool I have. Anything would do — a rem-
nant or anything "

The matter of the advertisement remained in abey-
ance for half an hour, and at the end the little stool
was still a candidate for covering and Kipps had a
thoroughly representative collection of the textile fab-
rics in his department to clear away. He was so
angry about the little stool that the crumpled adver-
tisement lay for a space in his pocket, absolutely for-
gotten.

§2

Kipps sat on his tin box under the gas bracket that
evening, and looked up the name Euphemia and

136 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

learnt what it meant in the "Enquire Within About
Everything" that constituted Buggins' reference lib-
rary. He hoped Buggins, according to his habit,
would ask him what he was looking for, but Buggins
was busy turning out his week's washing. "Two col-
lars," said Buggins, "half pair socks, two dickeys.
Shirt? .... M'm. There ought to be an-
other collar somewhere."

"Euphemia," said Kipps at last, unable altogether
to keep to himself this suspicion of a high origin that
floated so delightfully about him, "Eu — phemia; it
isn't a name common people would give to a girl, is
it?"

"It isn't the name any decent people would give to
a girl," said Buggins, " common or not."

"Lor' !" said Kipps. "Why?"

"It's giving girls names like that," said Buggins,
"that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It
unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I
was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane. Every
one of 'em. You couldn't have a better name than
that. Euphemia indeed! What next? . . . .
Good Lord ! . . . . That isn't one of my col-
lars there, is it? under your bed?" ....

Kipps got him the collar.

"I don't see no great 'arm in Euphemia," he said
as he did so.

After that he became restless. "I'm a good mind
to write that letter," he said, and then, finding Bug-
gins preoccupied wrapping his washing up in the

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 137

"half SOX," added to himself, "a thundering good
mind."

So he got his penny bottle of ink, borrowed the pen
from Buggins and with no very serious difficulty in
spelling or composition, did as he had resolved.

He came back into the bedroom about an hour
afterwards a little out of breath and pale. "Where
you been?" said Buggins, who was now reading the
Daily World Manager, which came to him in rotation
from Carshot.

"Out to post some letters," said Kipps, hanging up
his hat.

"Crib hunting?"

"Mostly," said Kipps.

"Rather," he added, with a nervous laugh; "what
else?"

Buggins went on reading. Kipps sat on his bed
and regarded the back of the Daily World Manager
thoughtfully.

"Buggins," he said at last.

Buggins lowered his paper and looked.

"I say, Buggins, what do these here advertisements
mean that say so-and-so will hear of something great-
ly to his advantage?"

"Missin' people," said Buggins, making to resume
reading.

"How d'yer mean?" asked Kipps. "Money left
and that sort of thing?"

Buggins shook his head. "Debts," he said, "more
often than not."

138 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"But that ain't to his advantage."

"They put that to get 'old of 'em," said Buggins.
"Often it's wives."

"What you mean?"

"Deserted wives, try and get their husbands back
that way."

"I suppose it is legacies sometimes, eh? Perhaps
if someone was left a hundred pounds by some-
one "

"Hardly ever," said Buggins.

"Well, 'ow ?" began Kipps and hesitated.

"Buggins resumed reading. He was very much
excited by a leader on Indian affairs. "By Jove!"
he said, "it won't do to give these here Blacks
votes."

"No fear," said Kipps.

"They're different altogether," said Buggins.
"They 'aven't the sound sense of Englishmen, and
they 'aven't the character. There's a sort of tricky
dishonesty about 'em — false witness and all that — of
which an Englishman has no idea. Outside their
courts of law — it's a pos'tive fact, Kipps — there's wit-
nesses waitin' to be 'ired. Reg'lar trade. Touch
their 'ats as you go in. Englishmen 'ave no idea, I
tell you — not ord'nary Englishmen. It's in their
blood. They're too timid to be honest. Too slavish.
They aren't used to being free like we are, and if you
gave 'em freedom they wouldn't make a proper use of
it. Now we . Oh, Damn!"

For the gas had suddenly gone out and Buggins

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 139

had the whole column of Society Club Chat still to
read.

Buggins could talk of nothing after that but Shal-
ford's meanness in turning off the gas, and after being
extremely satirical indeed about their employer, un-
dressed in the dark, hit his bare toe against a box and
subsided after unseemly ejaculations into silent ill-
temper.

Though Kipps tried to get to sleep before the
affair of the letter he had just posted resumed pos-
session of his mind he could not do so. He went over
the whole thing again, quite exhaustively. Now that
his first terror was abating he couldn't quite determine
whether he was glad or sorry that he had posted that
letter. If it should happen to be a hundred pounds!

It must be a hundred pounds'!

If it was he could hold out for a year, for a couple
of years even, before he got a Crib.

Even if it was fifty pounds !

Buggins was already breathing regularly when
Kipps spoke again. "5//^-gins," he said.

Buggins pretended to be asleep, and thickened his
regular breathing (a little too hastily) to a snore.

"I say Buggins," said Kipps after an interval.

''^What's up now?" said Buggins unamiably.

" 'Spose you saw an advertisement in a paper, with
your name in it, see, asking you to come and see some-
one, like, so as to hear of something very much to
your "

"Hide," said Buggins shortly.

I40 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"But "

"I'd hide."

"Er?"

"Goonight, o' man," said Buggins, with convincing
earnestness. Kipps lay still for a long time, then blew
profoundly, turned over and stared at the other side
of the dark.

He had been a fool to post that letter I

Lord! Hadn't he been a fool!

§3

It was just five days and a half after the light had
been turned out while Buggins was reading, that a
young man with a white face and eyes bright and
wide-open, emerged from a side road upon the Leas
front. He was dressed in his best clothes, and, al-
though the weather was fine, he carried his umbrella,
just as if he had been to church. He hesitated and
turned to the right. He scanned each house nar-
rowly as he passed it, and presently came to an abrupt
stop. "Hughenden," said the gateposts in firm, black
letters, and the fanlight in gold repeated "Hughen-
den." It was a stucco house fit to take your breath
away, and its balcony was painted a beautiful sea-
green, enlivened with gilding. He stood looking up
at it.

"Gollys 1" he said at last in an awestricken whisper.

It had rich-looking crimson curtains to all the lower
windows and brass railed blinds above. There was a
splendid tropical plant in a large, artistic pot in

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 141

the drawing-room window. There was a splendid
bronzed knocker (ring also) and two bells — one
marked "servants." Gollysl Servants, ch?

He walked past away from it, with his eyes regard-
ing it, and then turned and came back. He passed
through a further indecision, and finally drifted away
to the sea front and sat down on a seat a little way
along the Leas and put his arm over the back and re-
garded "Hughenden." He whistled an air very soft-
ly to himself, put his head first on one side and then
on the other. Then for a space he scowled fixedly
at it.

A very stout old gentleman, with a very red face
and very protuberant eyes, sat down beside Kipps,
removed a Panama hat of the most abandoned des-
perado cut, and mopped his brow and blew. Then he
began mopping the inside of his hat. Kipps watched
him for a space, wondering how much he might have
a year, and where he bought his hat. Then "Hugh-
enden" reasserted itself.

An impulse overwhelmed him. "I say," he said,
leaning forward, to the old gentleman.

The old gentleman started and stared.

"Whad do you say?" he asked fiercely.

"You wouldn't think," said Kipps, indicating with
his forefinger, "that that 'ouse there belongs to me."

The old gentleman twisted his neck round to look
at "Hughenden." Then he came back to Kipps,
looked at his mean, little garments with apoplectic in-
tensity and blew at him by way of reply.

142 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

"It does," said Kipps, a little less confidently.

"Don't be a Fool," said the old gentleman, and
put his hat on and wiped out the corners of his eyes.
"It's hot enough," panted the old gentleman indig-
nantly, "without Fools." Kipps looked from the old
gentleman to the house and back to the old gentleman.
The old gentleman looked at Kipps and snorted and
looked out to sea, and again, snorting very contemp-
tuously, at Kipps.

"Mean to say it doesn't belong to me?" said Kipps.

The old gentleman just glanced over his shpulder
at the house in dispute and then fell to pretending
Kipps didn't exist. "It's been lef me this very morn-
ing," said Kipps. "It ain't the only one that's been
lef me, neither."

"Aw!" said the old gentleman, like one who is
sorely tried. He seemed to expect the passers-by pres-
ently to remove Kipps.

"It 'as'^ said Kipps. He made no further remark
to the old gentleman for a space, but looked with a
little less certitude at the house.

"I got " he said and stopped.

"It's no good telling you if you don't believe," he
said.

The old gentleman, after a struggle with himself,
decided not to have a fit. "Try that game on with
me," he panted. "Give you in charge."

"What game?"

"Wasn't born yesterday," said the old gentleman,
and blew. "Besides," he added, "look at you 1 I

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 143

know you," and the old gentleman coughed shortly
and nodded to the horizon and coughed again.

Kipps looked dubiously from the house to the old
gentleman and back to the house. Their conversa-
tion, he gathered, was over. Presently he got up and
went slowly across the grass to its stucco portal again.
He stood and his mouth shaped the precious word,
*'Hughenden." It was all n^/z?.-' He looked over his
shoulder as if in appeal to the old gentleman, then
turned and went his way. The old gentleman was so
evidently past all reason !

He hung for a moment some distance along the
parade, as though some invisible string was pulling
him back. When he could no longer see the house
from the pavement he went out into the road. Then
with an effort he snapped the string.

He went on down a quiet side street, unbuttoned
his coat furtively, took out three bank notes in an
envelope, looked at them and replaced them. Then
he fished up five new sovereigns from his trouser
pocket and examined them. To such a confidence
had his exact resemblance to his dead mother's por-
trait carried Messrs. Watson and Bean.

It was right enough.

It really was all right.

He replaced the coins with grave precaution and
went his way with a sudden briskness. It was all
right — he had it now — he was a rich man at large.
He went up a street and round a corner and along
another street, and started towards the Pavilion and

144 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

changed his mind and came round back, resolved to
go straight to the Emporium and tell them all.

He was aware of someone crossing a road far off
ahead of him, someone curiously relevant to his pres-
ent extraordinary state of mind. It was Chitterlow.
Of course it was Chitterlow who had told him first
of the whole thing! The playwright was marching
buoyantly along a cross street. His nose was in the
air, the yachting cap was on the back of his head and
the large freckled hand grasped two novels from the
library, a morning newspaper, a new hat done up in
paper and a lady's net bag full of onions and toma-
toes.

He passed out of sight behind the wine merchant's
at the corner, as Kipps decided to hurry forward and
tell him of the amazing change In the Order of the
Universe that had just occurred.

Kipps uttered a feeble shout, arrested as it began,
and waved his umbrella. Then he set off at a smart
pace In pursuit. He came round the corner and Chit-
terlow had gone; he hurried to the next and there
was no Chitterlow, he turned back unavallingly and
his eyes sought some other possible corner. His hand
fluttered to his mouth and he stood for a space at the
pavement edge, staring about him. No good!

But the sight of Chitterlow was a wholesome thing,
it connected events together, joined him on again to
the past at a new point, and that was what he so badly
needed.

It was all right — all right.

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 14^

He became suddenly very anxious to tell everybody
at the Emporium, absolutely everybody, all about it.
That was what wanted doing. He felt that telling
was the thing to make this business real. He gripped
his umbrella about the middle and walked very
eagerly.

He entered the Emporium through the Manches-
ter department. He flung open the door (over whose
ground glass he had so recently, in infinite apprehen-
sion, watched the nose of Chitterlow) and discovered
the second apprentice and Pierce in conversation.
Pierce was prodding his hollow tooth with a pin and
talking in fragments about the distinctive character-
istics of Good Style.

Kipps came up in front of the counter.

"I say," he said; "what d'yer think?"

*'What?" said Pierce over the pin.

"Guess."

"You've slipped out because Teddy's in London."

"Something more."

"What?"

"Been left a fortune."

"Garni"

"I 'ave."

"Get out!"

"Straight. I been lef twelve 'undred pounds —
twelve 'undred pounds a year!"

He moved towards the little door out of the
department into the house, moving, as heralds
say, regardant passant. Pierce stood with mouth

146 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

wide open and pin poised In air. "No!" he said at

last.

"It's right," said KIpps, "and I'm going."
And he fell over the doormat Into the house.

§4

It happened that Mr. Shalford was In London buy-
ing summer sale goods — and no doubt also Interview-
ing aspirants to succeed KIpps.

So that there was positively nothing to hinder a
wild rush of rumour from end to end of the Empo-
rium. All the masculine members began their report
with the same formula. "Heard about KIpps?"

The new girl In the cash desk had had It from
Pierce and had dashed out Into the fancy shop to be
the first with the news on the fancy side. KIpps had
been left a thousand pounds a year, twelve thousand
pounds a year. KIpps had been left twelve hun-
dred thousand pounds. The figures were uncertain,
but the essential facts they had correct. KIpps had
gone upstairs. KIpps was packing his box. He said
he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium,
not for a thousand pounds ! It was said that he was
singing ribaldry about old Shalford.

He had come down ! He was In the counting
house. There was a general movement thither.
Poor old Bugglns had a customer and couldn't make
out what the deuce It was all about! Completely out
of it was Bugglns.

There was a sound of running to and fro and

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 147

voices saying this, that and the other thing about
Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner
bell all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was
suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell some-
body, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know
and be first to tell them, "Kipps has been left thirty —
forty — fifty thousand pounds !"

^''fVhat!" cried the senior porter, "Him!" and ran
up to the counting house as eagerly as though Kipps
had broken his neck.

"One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand
pounds," said the first apprentice, returning after a
great absence, to his customer.

"Unexpectedly?" said the customer.

"Quite," said the first apprentice.

"I'm sure if Anyone deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps,"
said Miss Mergle, and her train rustled as she hur-
ried to the counting house.

There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of con-
gratulations. His facejyas-jflushcd^nd his hair dis-
ordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella
in his left hand. His right hand was anyone's to
shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-
dinger ding, ding, ding, dang you ! went the neglected
dinner bell.)

"Good old Kipps," said Pierce, shaking; "Good
old Kipps."

Booch rubbed one anaemic hand upon the other.
"You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps," he said in the
background.

148 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"I'm sure we all congratulate him," said Miss
Mergle.

"Great Scott!" said the new young lady in the
glove department. "Twelve hundred a year 1 Great
Scott I You aren't thinking of marrying anyone, are
you, Mr. Kipps?"

"Three pounds, five and ninepence a day," said
Mr. Booch, working in his head almost miraculous-
ly. . . .

Everyone, it seemed, was saying how glad they
were it was Kipps, except the junior apprentice, upon
whom — he being the only son of a widow and used to
having the best of everything as a right — an intolera-
ble envy, a sense of unbearable wrong, had cast its
gloomy shade. All the rest were quite honestly and
simply glad — gladder perhaps at that time than
Kipps because they were not so overpowered. . . .

Kipps went downstairs to dinner, emitting frag-
mentary, disconnected statements. "Never expected
anything of the sort. . . . When this here old
Bean told me, you could have knocked me down with
a feather. . . . He says, 'You b'en lef money.'
Even then I didn't expect it'd be mor'n a hundred
pounds perhaps. Something like that."

With the sitting down to dinner and the handing
of plates the excitement assumed a more orderly qual-
ity. The housekeeper emitted congratulations as she
carved and the maidservant became dangerous to
clothes with the plates — she held them anyhow, one
expected to see one upside down even — she found

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 149

Kipps so fascinating to look at. Everyone was the
brisker and hungrier for the news (except the junior
apprentice) and the housekeeper carved with unusual
liberality. It was High Old Times there under the
gaslight, High Old Times. "I'm sure if Anyone de-
serves it," said Miss Mergle — "pass the salt, please
— it's Kipps."

The babble died away a little as Carshot began
barking across the table at Kipps. "You'll be a bit of
a Swell, Kipps," he said. "You won't hardly know
yourself."

"Quite the gentleman," said Miss Mergle.

"Many real gentlemen's families," said the house-
keeper, "have to do with less."

"See you on the Leas," said Carshot. "My gu — 1"
He met the housekeeper's eye. She had spoken about
that before. "My eye!" he said tamely, lest words
should mar the day.

"You'll go to London, I reckon," said Pierce.
"You'll be a man about town. We shall see you
mashing 'em, with violets in your button'ole down the
Burlington Arcade.

"One of these West End Flats. That'd be my
style," said Pierce, "And a first-class club."

"Aren't these clubs a bit 'ard to get into?"
asked Kipps, open-eyed, over a mouthful of
potato.

"No fear. Not for Money," said Pierce. And
the girl in the laces who had acquired a cynical view
of Modern Society from the fearless exposures of

150 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Miss Marie Corelli, said "Money goes everywhere
nowadays, Mr. Kipps."

But Carshot showed the true British strain.

"If I was Kipps," he said, pausing momentarily
for a knifeful of gravy, "I should go to the Rockies
and shoot bears."

"I'd certainly 'ave a run over to Boulogne," said
Pierce, "and look about a bit. I'm going to do that
next Easter myself, anyhow — see if I don't."

"Go to Oireland, Mr. Kipps," came the soft in-
sistence of Biddy Murphy, who managed the big
workroom, flushed and shining in the Irish way, as
she spoke. "Go to Oireland. Ut's the loveliest coun-
try in the world. Outside Car-rs. Fishin', shootin',
huntin'. An' pretty gals ! Eh ! You should see the
Lakes of Killarney, Mr. Kipps !" And she expressed
ecstasy by a facial pantomime and smacked her lips.

And presently they crowned the event.

It was Pierce who said, "Kipps, you ought to stand
Sham!"

And it was Carshot who found the more poetical
word, "Champagne."

"Rather!" said Kipps hilariously, and the rest was
a question of detail and willing emissaries. "Here it
comes!" they said as the apprentice came down the
staircase. "How about the shop?" said someone.
"Oh! hang the shop !" said Carshot and made grunt-
ulous demands for a corkscrew with a thing to cut
the wire. Pierce, the dog ! had a wire cutter in his
pocket knife. How Shalford would have stared at

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 151

the gold tipped bottles If he had chanced to take an
early train ! Bang with the corks, and bang ! Gluck,
gluck, gluck, and sizzle !

When Kipps found them all standing about him
under the gas flare, saying almost solemnly "Kipps!"
with tumblers upheld — "Have It In tumblers," Car-
shot had said; "have it in tumblers. It Isn't a wine
like you have in glasses. Not like port and sherry.
It cheers you up, but you don't get drunk. It Isn't
hardly stronger than lemonade. They drink it at
dinner, some of 'em, every day."

"What ! At three and six a bottle !" said the house-
keeper Incredulously.

'^They don't stick at that," said Carshot; "not the
champagne sort."

The housekeeper pursed her lips and shook her
head. ...

When Kipps, I say, found them all standing up to
toast him in that manner, there came such a feeling in
his throat and face that for the life of him he scarcely
knew for a moment whether he was not going to cry.
"Kipps !" they all said, with kindly eyes. It was very
good of them, it was very good of them, and hard
there wasn't a stroke of luck for them all !

But the sight of upturned chins and glasses pulled
him together again.

They did him honour. Unenvlously and freely
they did him honour.

For example, Carshot being subsequently engaged
in serving cretonne and desiring to push a number of

152 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. I

rejected blocks up the counter in order to have space
for measuring, swept them by a powerful and ill-
calculated movement of the arm, with a noise like
thunder partly on to the floor and partly on to the
foot of the still gloomily preoccupied junior appren-
tice. And Buggins, whose place it was to shopwalk
while Carshot served, shopwalked with quite un-
paralleled dignity, dangling a new season's sunshade
with a crooked handle on one finger. He arrested
each customer who came down the shop with a grave
and penetrating look. "Showing very 'tractive line
new sheason's shun-shade," he would remark, and,
after a suitable pause, " 'Markable thing, one our
'sistant leg'sy twelve 'undred a year. V'ry 'tractive.
Nothing more to-day, mum? No!" And he would
then go and hold the door open for them with per-
fect decorum and with the sunshade dangling elegant-
ly from his left hand. . . .

And the second apprentice, serving a customer with
cheap ticking, and being asked suddenly if it was
strong, answered remarkably,

"Oo! no, mum! Strong! Why it ain't 'ardly
stronger than lemonade. . . ."

The head porter, moreover, was filled with a virtu-
ous resolve to break the record as a lightning packer
and make up for lost time. Mr. Swaffenham, of the
Sandgate Riviera, for example, who was going out to
dinner that night at seven, received at half-past six,
instead of the urgently needed dress shirt he expected,
a corset specially adapted to the needs, of persons in-

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 153

clined to embonpoint. A parcel of summer under-
clothing selected by the elder Miss Waldershawe, was
somehow distributed in the form of gratis additions
throughout a number of parcels of a less intimate na-
ture, and a box of millinery on approval to Lady
Pamshort (at Wampiachs) was enriched by the addi-
tion of the junior porter's cap.

These little things, slight in themselves, witness
perhaps none the less eloquently to the unselfish ex-
hilaration felt throughout the Emporium at the ex-
traordinary and unexpected enrichment of Mr. Kipps.

§5

The 'bus that plies between New Romney and
Folkestone is painted a British red and inscribed on
either side with the word "Tip-top" in gold amidst
voluptuous scrolls. It is a slow and portly 'bus. Be-
low it swings a sort of hold, hung by chains between
the wheels, and in the summer time the top has gar-
den seats. The front over the two dauntless unhurry-
ing horses rises in tiers like a theatre; there is first a
seat for the driver and his company, and above that a
seat and above that, unless my memory plays me
false, a seat. There are days when this 'bus goes and
days when it doesn't go — you have to find out. And
so you get to New Romney.

This 'bus it was, this ruddy, venerable and immor-
tal 'bus, that came down the Folkestone hill with un-
flinching deliberation, and trundled through Sandgate
and Hythe, and out into the windy spaces of the

154 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Marsh, with Kipps and all his fortunes on its brow.
You figure him there. He sat on the highest seat dia-
metrically above the driver and his head was spinning
and spinning with champagne and this stupendous
Tomfoolery of Luck and his heart was swelling,
swelling indeed at times as though it would burst
him, and his face towards the sunlight was transfig-
ured. He said never a word, but ever and again as he
thought of this or that, he laughed. He seemed full
of chuckles for a time, detached and independent
chuckles, chuckles that rose and burst in him like bub-
bles in a wine. . . . He held a banjo sceptre-
fashion and restless on his knee. He had always
wanted a banjo, and now he had got one at Mal-
chlor's while he was waiting for the 'bus.

There sat beside him a young servant who was
sucking peppermint and a little boy with a sniff, whose
flitting eyes showed him curious to know why ever
and again Kipps laughed, and beside the driver were
two young men in gaiters talking about "tegs." And
there sat Kipps, all unsuspected, twelve hundred a
year, as it were, disguised as a common young man.
And the young man in gaiters to the left of the driver
eyed Kipps and his banjo, and especially his banjo,
ever and again as if he found it and him, with his
rapt face, an insoluble enigma. And many a King
has ridden into a conquered city with a lesser sense of
splendour than Kipps.

Their shadows grew long behind them and their
faces were transfigured in gold as they rumbled on

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 155

towards the splendid West. The sun set before they
had passed Dymchurch, and as they came lumbering
into New Romney past the windmill the dusk had
come.

The driver handed down the banjo and the port-
manteau, and Kipps having paid him — "That's aw
right," he said to the change, as a gentleman should
— turned about and ran the portmanteau smartly into
Old Kipps, whom the sound of the stopping of the
'bus had brought to the door of the shop in an aggres-
sive mood and with his mouth full of supper.

"Ullo, Uncle, didn't see you," said Kipps.

"Blunderin' ninny," said Old Kipps. "What's
brought you here? Ain't early closing, is it? Not
Toosday?"

"Got some news for you, Uncle," said Kipps, drop-
ping the portmanteau.

"Ain't lost your situation, 'ave you? What's that
you got there? I'm blowed if it ain't a banjo. Goo-
lord! Spendin' your money on banjoes ! Don't put
down your portmanty there — anyhow. Right in the
way of everybody. I'm blowed if ever I saw such a
boy as you've got lately. Here ! Molly! And, look
here I What you got a portmanty for ? Why ! Goo-
lord ! You ain't really lost your place, 'ave you ?"

"Somethin's happened," said Kipps slightly dash-
ed. "It's all right. Uncle. I'll tell you in a minute."

Old Kipps took the banjo as his nephew picked up
the portmanteau again.

The living room door opened quickly, showing a

156 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

table equipped with elaborate simplicity for supper,
and Mrs. Kipps appeared.

"If it ain't young Artie," she said. "Why 1 What-
ever's brought you 'ome?"

"Ullo, Aunt," said Artie. "I'm coming in. I got
somethin' to tell you. I've 'ad a bit of Luck."

He wouldn't tell them all at once. He staggered
with the portmanteau round the corner of the counter,
set a bundle of children's tin pails into clattering
oscillation, and entered the little room. He deposited
his luggage in the corner beside the tall clock, and
turned to his Aunt and Uncle again. His Aunt re-
garded him doubtfully, the yellow light from the
little lamp on the table escaped above the shade and
lit her forehead and the tip of her nose. It would be
all right in a minute. He wouldn't tell them all at
once. Old Kipps stood in the shop door with the
banjo in his hand, breathing noisily. "The fact is,
Aunt, I've 'ad a bit of Luck."

"You ain't been backin' gordless 'orses, Artie?"
she asked.

"No fear."

"It's a draw he's been in," said Old Kipps, still
panting from the impact of the portmanteau; "It's a
dratted draw. Jest look here, Molly. He's won this
'ere trashy banjer and thrown up his situation on the
strength of it — that's what he's done. Coin' about
singing. Dash and plunge ! Jest the very fault poor
Pheamy always 'ad. Blunder right In and no one
mustn't stop 'er!"

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 157

"You ain't thrown up your place, Artie, 'ave you?"
said Mrs. Kipps.

Kipps perceived his opportunity. "I 'ave," he
said; "I've throwed it up."

"What for?" said Old Kipps.

"So's to learn the banjo!"

"Goo Lord!" said Old Kipps, in horror to find
himself verified.

"I'm going about playing 1" said Kipps with a gig-
gle. "Goin' to black my face, Aunt, and sing on the
beach. I'm going to 'ave a most tremenjous lark and
earn any amount of money — you see. Twenty-six
fousand pounds I'm going to earn just as easy as noth-
ingl"

"Kipps," said Mrs. Kipps, "he's been drink-
ing!"

They regarded their nephew across the supper
table with long faces. Kipps exploded with laughter
and broke out again when his Aunt shook her head
very sadly at him. Then suddenly he fell grave. He
felt he could keep it up no longer. "It's all right,
Aunt. Reely. I ain't mad and I ain't been drinking.
I been lef money. I been left twenty-six fousand
pounds."

Pause.

"And you thrown up your place?" said Old Kipps.

"Yes," said Kipps. "Rather!"

"And bort this banjer, put on your best noo trou-
sers and come right on 'ere ?"

"Well," said Mrs. Kipps, "/ never did."

158 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"These ain't my noo trousers, Aunt," said Kipps
regretfully. "My noo trousers wasn't done."

"I shouldn't ha' thought that even you could ha'
been such a fool as that," said Old Kipps.

Pause.

"It's all right," said Kipps a little disconcerted by
their distrustful solemnity. "It's all right — reelyl
Twenny-six fousan' pounds. And a 'ouse "

Old Kipps pursed his lips and shook his head.

"A 'ouse on the Leas. I could have gone there.
Only I didn't. I didn't care to. I didn't know what
to say. I wanted to come and tell you."

"How d'yer know the 'ouse ?"

"They told me."

"Well," said Old Kipps, and nodded his head por-
tentously towards his nephew, with the corners of his
mouth pulled down in a portentous, discouraging
way. "Well, you are a young Gaby."

"I didn't think it of you, Artie!" said Mrs. Kipps,

"Wadjer mean?" asked Kipps faintly, looking
from one to the other with a withered face.

Old Kipps closed the shop door. "They been
'avin' a lark with you," said Old Kipps in a mournful
undertone. "That's what I mean, my boy. They
jest been seein' what a Gaby like you 'ud do."

"I dessay that young Quodling was in it," said
Mrs. Kipps. "'E's jest that sort."

(For Quodling of the green baize bag had
grown up to be a fearful dog, the terror of New
Romney.)

CH.vi THE UNEXPECTED 159

"It's somebody after your place very likely," said
Old Kipps.

Kipps looked from one sceptical, reproving face to
the other, and round him at the familiar shabby, little
room, with his familiar cheap portmanteau on the
mended chair, and that banjo amidst the supper
things like some irrevocable deed. Could he be rich
indeed? Could it be that these things had really hap-
pened? Or had some insane fancy whirled him
hither?

Still — perhaps a hundred pounds

"But," he said. "It's all right, reely, Uncle. You
don't think ? I 'ad a letter."

"Got up," said Old Kipps.

"But I answered it and went to a norfis."

Old Kipps felt staggered for a moment, but he
shook his head and chins sagely from side to side. As
the memory of old Bean and Shalford revived, the
confidence of Kipps came back to him.

"I saw a nold gent, Uncle — perfect gentleman.
And 'e told me all about it. Mos' respectable 'e was.
Said 'is name was Watson and Bean — leastways V
was Bean. Said it was lef me " Kipps sud-
denly dived into his breast pocket. "By my Grand-
father "

The old people started.

Old Kipps uttered an exclamation and wheeled
round towards the mantel shelf above which the
daguerreotype of his lost younger sister smiled its
fading smile upon the world.

i6o THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

"Waddy 'is name was," said Kipps, with his hand
still deep in his pocket. "It was 'is son was my
father "

"Waddyl" said Old Kipps.

"Waddy!" said Mrs. Kipps.

"She'd never say," said Old Kipps.

There was a long silence.

Kipps fumbled with a letter, a crumpled advertise-
ment and three bank notes. He hesitated between
these items.

"Why ! That young chap what was arsting ques-
tions " said Old Kipps, and regarded his wife

with an eye of amazement.

"Must 'ave been," said Mrs. Kipps.

"Must 'ave been," said Old Kipps.

"James," said Mrs. Kipps, in an awestricken voice,
"after all — perhaps — it's true!"

" 'Ow much did you say?" asked Old Kipps.
" 'Ow much did you say 'ed lef you, me b'y?"

It was thrilling, though not quite in the way Kipps
had expected. He answered almost meekly across the
meagre supper things, with his documentary evidence
in his hand:

"Twelve 'undred pounds. 'Proximately, he said.
Twelve 'undred pounds a year. 'E made 'is will, jest
before 'e died — not more'n a month ago. When 'e
was dying, 'e seemed to change like, Mr. Bean said.
'E'd never forgiven 'is son, never — not till then. 'Is
son 'ad died in Australia, years and years ago, and
then 'e 'adn't forgiven 'im. You know — 'is son what

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED i6i

was my father. But jest when 'e was ill and dying 'e
seemed to get worried like and longing for someone
of 'is own. And 'e told Mr. Bean it was 'im that had
prevented them marrying. So 'e thought. That's
'ow it all come about. ..."

§6

At last Kipps' flaring candle went up the narrow
uncarpeted staircase to the little attic that had been
his shelter and refuge during all the days of his child-
hood and youth. His head was whirling. He had
been advised, he had been warned, he had been flat-
tered and congratulated, he had been given whiskey
and hot water and lemon and sugar, and his health
had been drunk in the same. He had also eaten two
Welsh Rabbits — an unusual supper. His Uncle was
chiefly for his going into Parliament, his Aunt was
consumed with a great anxiety. "I'm afraid he'll go
and marry beneath 'im."

"Y'ought to 'ave a bit o' shootin' somewheer," said
Old Kipps.

"It's your duty to marry into a county family, Ar-
tie. Remember that."

"There's lots of young noblemen'll be glad to 'ang
on to you," said Old Kipps. "You mark my words.
And borry your money. And then, good day to ye."

"I got to be precious Careful," said Kipps. "Mr.
Bean said that."

"And you got to be precious careful of this old

t62 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

Bean," said Old KIpps. "We may be out of the
world in Noo Romney, but I've 'eard a bit about
s'licitors, for all that. You keep your eye on old Bean,
me b'y-

" 'Ow do we know what 'e's up to, with your
money, even now?" said Old Kipps, pursuing this
uncomfortable topic.

*' 'E looked very respectable," said Kipps. . . .

Kipps undressed with great deliberation, and with
vast gaps of pensive margin. Twenty-six thousand
pounds !

His Aunt's solicitude had brought back certain
matters into the foreground that his "Twelve 'Un-
dred a year!" had for a time driven away altogether.
His thoughts went back to the wood-carving class.
Twelve Hundred a Year. He sat on the edge of the
bed in profound meditation and his boots fell "whop"
and "whop" upon the floor, with a long interval be-
tween each "whop." Twenty-five thousand pounds.
"By Gum !" He dropped the remainder of his cos-
tume about him on the floor, got into bed, pulled the
patchwork quilt over him and put his head on the
pillow that had been first to hear of Ann Pornick's
accession to his heart. But he did not think of Ann
Pornick now.

It was about everything In the world except Ann
Pornick that he seemed to be trying to think of —
simultaneously. All the vivid happenings of the day
came and went in his overtaxed brain; "that old
Bean" explaining and explaining, the fat man who

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 163

wouldn't believe, an overpowering smell of pepper-
mint, the banjo, Miss Mergle saying he deserved It,
Chitterlow's vanishing round a corner, the wisdom
and advice and warnings of his Aunt and Uncle. She
was afraid he would marry beneath him, was she?
She didn't know.

His brain made an excursion into the wood-carving
class and presented Kipps with the picture of himself
amazing that class by a modest yet clearly audible
remark, "I been left twenty-six thousand pounds."
Then he told them all quietly but fijrmly that he had
always loved Miss Walshlngham, always, and so he
had brought all his twenty-six thousand pounds with
him to give to her there and then. He wanted noth-
ing In return. . . . Yes, he wanted nothing In
return. He would give It to her all In an envelope
and go. Of course he would keep the banjo — and a
little present for his Aunt and Uncle — and a new suit
perhaps — and one or two other things she would not
miss. He went off at a tangent. He might buy a
motor car, he might buy one of these here things that
will play you a piano — that would make old Buggins
sit up ! He could pretend he had learnt to play — he
might buy a bicycle and a cyclist suit.

A terrific multitude of plans of what he might do
and in particular of what he might buy, came crowd-
ing into his brain, and he did not so much fall asleep
as pass Into a disorder of dreams In which he was
driving a four-horse Tip-Top coach down Sandgate
Hill ("I shall have to be precious careful") , wearing

1 64 THE MAKING OF KIPPS bk. i

innumerable suits of clothes, and through some terri-
ble accident wearing them all wrong. Consequently
he was being laughed at. The coach vanished in the
interest of the costume. He was wearing golfing
suits and a silk hat. This passed into a nightmare
that he was promenading on the Leas in a Highland
costume, with a kilt that kept shrinking, and Shalford
was following him with three policemen. "He's my
assistant," Shalford kept repeating; "he's escaped.
He's an escaped Improver. Keep by him and in a
minute you'll have to run him in. I know 'em. We
say they wash, but they won't." . . . He could
feel the kilt creeping up his legs. He would have
tugged at it to pull it down only his arms were para-
lysed. He had an impression of giddy crisis. He
uttered a shriek of despair. "Now!" said Shalford.
He woke in horror, his quilt had slipped off the bed.

He had a fancy he had just been called, that he
had somehow overslept himself and missed going
down for dusting. Then he perceived it was still
night and light by reason of the moonlight, and that
he was no longer in the Emporium. He wondered
where he could be. He had a curious fancy that the
world had been swept and rolled up like a carpet and
that he was nowhere. It occurred to him that per-
haps he was mad. "Buggins!" he said. There was
no answer, not even the defensive snore. No room,
no Buggins, nothing!

Then he remembered better. He sat on the edge
of his bed for some time. Could anyone have seen

CH. VI THE UNEXPECTED 165

his face they would have seen It white and drawn
with staring eyes. Then he groaned weakly. "Twen-
ty-six thousand pounds?" he whispered.

Just then it presented itself in an almost horribly
overwhelming mass.

He remade his bed and returned to it. He was
still dreadfully wakeful. It was suddenly clear to
him that he need never trouble to get up punctually
at seven again. That fact shone out upon him like a
star through clouds. He was free to lie in bed as long
as he liked, get up when he liked, go where he liked,
have eggs every morning for breakfast or rashers or
bloater paste or ... . Also he was going to
astonish Miss Walshingham. ' . . .

Astonish her and astonish her. . . .
• •••••••

He was awakened by a thrush singing in the fresh
dawn. The whole room was flooded with warm,
golden sunshine. "I say!" said the thrush. "I sayl
I say! Twelve 'undred a year! Twelve 'Undred a
Year. Twelve 'UNDRED a Year! I say! I sayl
I say!"

He sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his
eyes with his knuckles. Then he jumped out of bed
and began dressing very eagerly. He did not want
to lose any time in beginning the new life.

END OF BOOK I

BOOK I]
MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON

CHAPTER I

THE NEW CONDITIONS
§1

There comes a gentlemanly figure into these
events and for a space takes a leading part therein, a
Good Influence, a refined and amiable figure, Mr.
Chester Coote. You must figure him as about to
enter our story, walking with a curious rectitude of
bearing through the evening dusk towards the Public
Library, erect, large-headed — he had a great, big
head full of the suggestion of a powerful mind, well
under control — with a large, official-looking envelope
in his white and knuckly hand. In the other he car-
ries a gold-handled cane. He wears a silken grey
jacket suit, buttoned up, and anon he coughs behind
the official envelope. He has a prominent nose, slatey
grey eyes and a certain heaviness about the mouth.
His mouth hangs breathing open, with a slight prch-
trusion of the lower jaw. His straw hat is pulled
down a little in front, and he looks each person he
passes in the eye, and directly his look is answered
looks away.

Thus Mr. Chester Coote, as he was on the evening
when he came upon Kipps. He was a local house

169

lyo MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

agent and a most active and gentlemanly person, a
conscious gentleman, equally aware of society and the
serious side of life. From amateur theatricals of a
nice, refined sort to science classes, few things were
able to get along without him. He supplied a fine,
full bass, a little flat and quavery perhaps, but very
abundant, to the St. Stylites' choir.

He passes on towards the Public Library, lifts the
envelope in salutation to a passing curate, smiles and
enters.

It was in the Public Library that he came upon
Kipps.

By that time Kipps had been rich a week or more,
and the change in his circumstances was visible upon
his person. He was wearing a new suit of drab flan-
nels, a Panama hat and a red tie for the first time,
and he carried a silver-mounted stick with a tortoise
shell handle. He felt extraordinarily different, per-
haps more different than he really was, from the meek
Improver of a week ago. He felt as he felt Dukes
must feel, yet at bottom he was still modest. He was
leaning on his stick and regarding the indicator with
a respect that never palled. He faced round to meet
Mr. Coote's overflowing smile.

"What are you doang hea?" said Mr. Chester
Coote.

Kipps was momentarily abashed. "Oh," he said
slowly, and then, "Mooching round a bit."

That Coote should address him with this easy
familiarity was a fresh reminder of his enhanced so-

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 1 7 1

cial position, *'Jes' mooching round," he said. "I
been back in Folkestone free days now. At my 'ouse,
you know."

"Ahl" said Mr. Coote. "I haven't yet had an
opportunity of congratulating you on your good for-
tune."

Kipps held out his hand. "It was the cleanest sur-
prise that ever was," he said. "When Mr. Bean told
me of it — you could have knocked me down with a
feather."

"It must mean a tremendous change for you."

"Oo. Rather. Change. Why, I'm hke the chap
In the song they sing, I don't 'ardly know where I are.
You know."

"An extraordinary change," said Mr. Coote. "I
can quite believe it. Are you stopping in Folke-
stone ?"

"For a bit. I got a 'ouse, you know. What my
gran'father 'ad. I'm stopping there. His house-
keeper was kep' on. Fancy — being in the same town
and everything!"

"Precisely," said Mr. Coote. "That's it!" and
coughed like a sheep behind four straight fingers.

"Mr. Bean got me to come back to see to things.
Else I was out in New Romney, where my Uncle and
Aunt live. But it's a Lark coming back. In a
way . . . ."

The conversation hung for a moment.

"Are you getting a book?" asked Coote.

"Well, I 'aven't got a ticket yet. But I shall get

172 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

one all right, and have a go in at reading. I've often
wanted to. Rather. I was just 'aving a look at this
Indicator. First-class idea. Tells you all you want
to know."

"It's simple," said Coote, and coughed again, keep-
ing his eyes fixed on Kipps. For a moment they hung,
evidently disinclined to part. Then Kipps jumped at
an idea he had cherished for a day or more, — not
particularly in relation to Coote, but in relation to
anyone.

"You doing anything?" he asked.

"Just called with a papah about the classes."

"Because . Would you care to come up and

look at my 'ouse and 'ave a smoke and a chat. Eh?"
He made indicative back jerks of the head, and was
smitten with a horrible doubt whether possibly this
invitation might not be some hideous breach of eti-
quette. Was it, for example, the correct hour? "I'd
be awfully glad if you would," he added.

Mr. Coote begged for a moment while he handed
the official-looking envelope to the librarian and then
declared himself quite at Kipps' service. They mud-
dled a moment over precedence at each door they
went through and so emerged to the street.

"It feels awful rum to me at first, all this," said
Kipps " 'Aving a 'ouse of my own and all that. It's
strange, you know. 'Aving all day. Reely I don't
'ardly know what to do with my time.

"D'ju smoke?" he said suddenly, profferring a
magnificent gold decorated pigskin cigarette case,

CH.i THE NEW CONDITIONS 173

which he produced from nothing, almost as though it
was some sort of trick. Coote hesitated and declined,
and then, with great liberality, "Don't let me hinder
you. . . ."

They walked a little way in silence, Kipps being
chiefly concerned to affect ease in his new clothes and
keeping a wary eye on Coote. "It's rather a big
windfall," said Coote presently. "It yields you an
income ?"

"Twelve 'undred a year," said Kipps. "Bit over —
if anything."

"Do you think of living in Folkestone?"

"Don't know 'ardly yet. I may. Then again, I
may not. I got a furnished 'ouse, but I may let it."

"Your plans are undecided?"

"That's jest it," said Kipps.

"Very beautiful sunset it was to-night," said Coote,
and Kipps said, "Wasn't it?" and they began to talk
of the merits of sunsets. Did Kipps paint? Not since
he was a boy. He didn't believe he could now. Coote
said his sister was a painter and Kipps received this
intimation with respect. Coote sometimes wished he
could find time to paint himself, — but one couldn't do
everything and Kipps said that was "jest it."

They came out presently upon the end of the Leas
and looked down to where the squat dark masses of
the Harbour and Harbour Station, gemmed with pin-
point lights, crouched against the twilit grey of the
sea. "If one could do that," said Coote, and Kipps
was inspired to throw his head back, cock it on one

174 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

side, regard the Harbour with one eye shut and say
that it would take some doing. Then Coote said
something about "Abend," which Kipps judged to be
in a foreign language and got over by lighting an-
other cigarette from his by no means completed first
one. "You're right, puff, puff."

He felt that so far he had held up his end of the
conversation in a very creditable manner, but that ex-
treme discretion was advisable.

They turned away and Coote remarked that the
sea was good for crossing, and asked Kipps if he had
been over the water very much. Kipps said he hadn't
been — "much," but he thought very likely he'd have
a run over to Boulogne soon, and Coote proceeded to
talk of the charms of foreign travel, mentioning quite
a number of unheard-of places by name. He had
been to them ! Kipps remained on the defensive, but
behind his defences his heart sank. It was all very
well to pretend, but presently it was bound to come
out. He didn't know anything of all this. . . .

So they drew near the house. At his own gate
Kipps became extremely nervous. It was a fine, im-
pressive door. He knocked neither a single knock
nor a double, but about one and a half — an apolo-
getic half. They were admitted by an irreproachable
housemaid, with a steady eye, before which Kipps
cringed dreadfully. He hung up his hat and fell
about over hall chairs and things. "There's a fire in
the study, Mary?" he had the audacity to ask, though
evidently he knew, and led the way upstairs panting.

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 175

He tried to shut the door and discovered the house-
maid behind him coming to light his lamp. This
enfeebled him further. He said nothing until the
door closed behind her. Meanwhile to show his sang
froid he hummed and flitted towards the window, and
here and there.

Coote went to the big hearthrug and turned and
surveyed his host. His hand went to the back of his
head and patted his occiput — a gesture frequent with
him.

*' 'Ere we are," said Kipps, hands in his pockets
and glancing round him.

It was a gaunt Victorian room, with a heavy, dirty
cornice, and the ceiling enriched by the radiant plaster
ornament of an obliterated gas chandelier. It held
two large glass fronted bookcases, one of which was
surmounted by a stuffed terrier encased in glass.
There was a mirror over the mantel and hangings
and curtains of magnificent crimson patternings. On
the mantel were a huge black clock of classical design,
vases in the Burslem Etruscan style, spills and tooth-
picks In large receptacles of carved rock, large lava
ash trays and an exceptionally big box of matches.
The fender was very great and brassy. In a favoura-
ble position, under the window, was a spacious rose-
wood writing desk, and all the chairs and other furni-
ture were of rosewood and well stuffed.

"This," said Kipps, in something near an under-
tone, "was the o' gentleman's study — my grandfather
that was. 'E used to sit at that desk and write."

176 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. il

"Books?"

"No. Letters to the Times, and things like that.
'E's got 'em all cut out — stuck in a book.
Leastways, he ^ad. It's in that bookcase.
Won't you sit down?"

Coote did, bowing very slightly, and Kipps se-
cured his vacated position on the extensive black skin
rug. He spread out his legs compass-fashion and
tried to appear at his ease. The rug, the fender, the
mantel and mirror conspired with great success to
make him look a trivial and intrusive little creature
amidst their commonplace hauteur, and his own
shadow on the opposite wall seemed to think every-
thing a great lark and mocked and made tremendous
fun of him. . . .

For a space Kipps played a defensive game and
Coote drew the lines of the conversation. They kept
away from the theme of Kipps' change of fortune,
and Coote made remarks upon local and social affairs.
"You must take an interest in these things now," was
as much as he said in the way of personalities. But
it speedily became evident that he was a person of
wide and commanding social relationships. He spoke
of "society" being mixed in the neighbourhood and
of the difficulty of getting people to work together,
and "do" things; they were chiquish. Incidentally he
alluded quite familiarly to men with military titles,
and once even to someone with a title, a Lady Pun-

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 177

net. Not snobbishly, you understand, nor deliberately,
but quite in passing. He had, it appeared, talked to
Lady Punnet about private theatricals ! In connec-
tion with the Hospitals. She had been unreasonable
and he had put her right, gently of course, but firmly.
"If you stand up to these people," said Coote, "they
like you all the better." It was also very evident he
was at his ease with the clergy; "My friend, Mr.
Densemore — a curate, you know, and rather curious,
the Reverend and Honourable." Coote grew visibly
in Kipps' eyes as he said these things; he became, not
only the exponent of "Vagner or Vargner," the man
whose sister had painted a picture to be exhibited at
the Royal Academy, the type of the hidden thing
called culture, but a delegate, as it were, or at least
an Intermediary from that great world "up there,"
where there were men servants, where there were
titles, where people dressed for dinner, drank wine at
meals, wine costing very often as much as three and
sixpence the bottle, and followed through a maze of
etiquette, the most stupendous practices.

Coote sat back In the armchair smoking luxuriously
and expanding pleasantly, with the delightful sense of
Savoir Faire; Kipps sat forward, his elbows on his
chair arm alert, and his head a little on one side.
You figure him as looking little and cheap and feeling
smaller and cheaper amidst his new surroundings.
But it was a most stimulating and interesting conver-
sation. And soon it became less general and more
serious and intimate. Coote spoke of people who had

178 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

got on, and of people who hadn't, of people who
seemed to be in everything and people who seemed to
be out of everything, and then he came round to
Kipps.

"You'll have a good time," he said abruptly, with
a smile that would have Interested a dentist.

"I dunno," said Kipps.

"There's mistakes, of course."

"That's jest it."

Coote lit a new cigarette. "One can't help being
interested In what you will do," he remarked. "Of
course — for a young man of spirit, come suddenly
into wealth — there's temptations."

"I got to go careful," said Kipps. "O' Bean told
me that at the very first."

Coote went on to speak of pitfalls, of Betting, of
Bad Companions. "I know," said Kipps, "I know."
"There's Doubt again," said Coote. "I know a
young fellow — a solicitor — handsome, gifted. And
yet, you know — utterly sceptical. Practically alto-
gether a Sceptic."

"Lor' !" said Kipps, "not a Nathelst?"

"I fear so," said Coote. "Really, you know, an
awfully fine young fellow — Gifted! But full of this
dreadful Modern Spirit — Cynical ! x'\ll this Over-
man stuff. Nietzsche and all that. ... I wish
I could do something for him."

"Ah!" said Kipps and knocked the ash off his
cigarette. "I know a chap — one of our apprentices
he was — once. Always scoffing. . . . He lef I"

CH.i THE NEW CONDITIONS 179

He paused. "Never wrote for his refs," he said,
in the deep tone proper to a moral tragedy, and then,
after a pause — "Enlisted !"

"Ah!" said Coote.

"And often," he said, after a pause, "It's just the
most spirited chaps, just the chaps one lllces best, who
Go Wrong."

"It's temptation," Kipps remarked.

He glanced at Coote, leant forward, knocked the
ash from his cigarette Into the mighty fender. "That's
jest It," he said; "you get tempted. Before you know
where you are."

"Modern life," said Coote, "Is so — complex. It
isn't everyone is Strong. Half the young fellows
who go wrong, aren't really bad."

"That's jest it," said KIpps.

"One gets a tone from one's surroundings "

"That's exactly It," said KIpps.

He meditated. "I picked up with a chap," he said.
"A Nacter. Leastways he writes plays. Clever fel-
low. But "

He Implied extensive moral obloquy by a move-
ment of his head. "Of course It's seeing life," he
added.

Coote pretended to understand the full implica-
tions of Kipps' remark. "Is it worth It?" he asked.

"That's jest It," said Kipps.

He decided to give some more. "One gets talk-
ing," he said. "Then It's ' 'ave a drink!' Old Me-
thusaleh four stars — and where are you? / been

i8o MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

drunk," he said in a tone of profound humility, and
added, "lots of times."

"Tt. Tt.," said Coote.

"Dozens of times," said Kipps, smiling sadly, and
added, "lately."

His imagination became active and seductive. "One
thing leads to another. Cards, p'raps. Girls "

"I know," said Coote; "I know."

Kipps regarded the fire and flushed slightly. He
borrowed a sentence that Chitterlow had recently
used. "One can't tell tales out of school," he said.

"I can imagine it," said Coote.

Kipps looked with a confidential expression into
Coote's face. "It was bad enough when money was

limited," he remarked. "But now " He spoke

with raised eyebrows, "I got to steady down."

"You must," said Coote, protruding his lips into a
sort of whistling concern for a moment.

"I must," said Kipps, nodding his head slowly with
raised eyebrows. He looked at his cigarette end and
threw it into the fender. He was beginning to think
he was holding his own in this conversation rather
well, after all.

Kipps was never a good liar. He was the first to
break silence. "I don't mean to say I been reely bad
or reely bad drunk. A 'eadache perhaps — three or
four times, say. But there it is !"

"I have never tasted alcohol in my life," said
Coote, with an immense frankness, "never I"

"No?"

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS i8i

"Never. I don't feel / should be likely to get
drunk at all — it isn't that. And I don't go so far as
to say even that in small quantities — at meals — it
does one harm. But if I take it, someone else who
doesn't know where to stop — you see?"

"That's jest it," said Kipps, with admiring eyes.

"I smoke," admitted Coote. "One doesn't want to
be a Pharisee."

It struck Kipps what a tremendously Good chap
this Coote was, not only tremendously clever and edu-
cated and a gentleman and one knowing Lady Pun-
net, but Good. He seemed to be giving all his time
and thought to doing good things to other people. A
great desire to confide certain things to him arose.
At first Kipps hesitated whether he should confide an
equal desire for Benevolent activities or for further
Depravity — either was in his mind. He rather affect-
ed the pose of the Good Intentioned Dog. Then
suddenly his impulses took quite a different turn, fell
indeed into what was a far more serious rut in his
mind. It seemed to him Coote might be able to do
for him something he very much wanted done.

"Companionship accounts for so much," said
Coote.

"That's jest it," said Kipps. "Of course, you
know, in my new position . That's just the diffi-
culty."

He plunged boldly at his most secret trouble. He
knew that he wanted refinement — culture. It was all
very well — but he knew. But how was one to get it ?

i82 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

He knew no one, knew no people . He rested on

the broken sentence. The shop chaps were all very
well, very good chaps and all that, but not what one
wanted. "I feel be'ind," said Kipps. "I feel out of
it. And consequently I feel it's no good. And then if
temptation comes along "

"Exactly," said Coote.

Kipps spoke of his respect for Miss Walshingham
and her freckled friend. He contrived not to look
too self-conscious. "You know, I'd like to talk to
people like that, but I can't. A chap's afraid of giv-
ing himself away."

"Of course," said Coote, "of course."

"I went to a middle-class school, you know. You
mustn't fancy I'm one of these here board-school
chaps, but you know it reely wasn't a first-class affair.
Leastways he didn't take pains with us. If you didn't
want to learn you needn't — I don't believe it was
much better than one of these here national schools.
We wore mortarboards, o' course. But what's that?

"I'm a regular fish out of water with this money.
When I got it — it's a week ago — reely I thought I'd
got everything I wanted. But I dunno what to do."

His voice went up into a squeak. "Practically,"
he said, "it's no good shuttin' my eyes to things — I'm
a gentleman."

Coote indicated a serious assent.

"And there's the responsibilities of a gentleman,"
he remarked.

"That's jest it," said Kipps.

CH.i THE NEW CONDITIONS 183

"There's calling on people," said KIpps. "If you
want to go on knowing Someone you knew before
like. People that's refined." He laughed nervously.
"I'm a regular fish out of water," he said, with ex-
pectant eyes on Coote.

But Coote only nodded for him to go on.

"This actor chap," he meditated, "is a good sort
of chap. But 'e isn't what / call a gentleman. I got
to 'old myself in with 'im. 'E'd make me go it wild
in no time. 'E's pretty near the on'y chap I know.
Except the shop chaps. They've come round to 'ave
supper once already and a bit of a sing song after-
wards. I sang. I got a banjo, you know, and I
vamp a bit. Vamping — you know. Haven't got far
in the book — 'Ow to Vamp — but still I'm getting on.
Jolly, of course, in a way, but what does it lead to?
Besides that, there's my Aunt and Uncle.
They're very good old people — very — jest a bit in-
terfering p'r'aps and thinking one isn't grown up, but

Right enough. Only . It isn't what I want. I

feel I've got be'ind with everything. I want to make
it up again. I want to get with educated people who
know 'ow to do things — in the regular, proper way."

His beautiful modesty awakened nothing but
benevolence in the mind of Chester Coote.

"If I had someone like you," said Kipps, "that I
knew regular like "

From that point their course ran swift and easy.
"If I could be of any use to you," said Coote. . . .

"But you're so busy and all that."

1 84 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"Not too busy. You know, your case is a very
interesting one. It was partly that made me speak to
you and draw you out. Here you are with all this
money and no experience, a spirited young chap "

"That's jest it," said Kipps.

"I thought I'd see what you were made of, and I
must confess I've rarely talked to anyone that I've
found quite so interesting as you have been "

"I seem able to say things to you like somehow,"
said Kipps.

"I'm glad. I'm tremendously glad.'*

"I want a Friend. That's it — straight."

"My dear chap, if I "

"Yes, but "

"/ want a Friend, too."

"Reely?"

"Yes. You know, my dear Kipps — if I may call
you that."

"Go on," said Kipps.

"I'm rather a lonely dog myself. This to-
night . I've not had anyone I've spoken to so

freely of my Work for months."

"No?"

"You. And, my dear chap, if I can do anything to
guide or help you "

Coote displayed all his teeth in a kindly tremulous
smile and his eyes were shiny. "Shake 'ands," said
Kipps, deeply moved, and he and Coote rose and
clasped with mutual emoticm.

"It's reely too good of you," said Kipps.

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 185

"Whatever I can do I will," said Coote.

And so their compact was made. From that mo-
ment they were Friends, intimate, confidential, high-
thinking, sotto voce friends. All the rest of their talk
(and it inclined to be interminable) was an expansion
of that. For that night Kipps wallowed in self-aban-
donment and Coote behaved as one who had received
a great trust. That sinister passion for pedagoguery
to which the Good Intentioned are so fatally liable,
that passion of infinite presumption that permits one
weak human being to arrogate the direction of an-
other weak human being's affairs, had Coote in its
grip. He was to be a sort of lay confessor and direc-
tor of Kipps, he was to help Kipps in a thousand
ways, he was in fact to chaperon Kipps into the
higher and better sort of English life. He was to tell
him his faults, advise him about the right thing to
do

"It's all these things I don't know," said Kipps.
"I don't know, for instance, what's the right sort of
dress to wear — I don't even know if I'm dressed right
now "

"All these things" — Coote stuck out his lips and
nodded rapidly to show he understood — "Trust me
for that," he said, "trust me."

As the evening wore on Coote's manner changed,
became more and more the manner of a proprietor.
He began to take up his role, to survey Kipps with a
new, with a critical affection. It was evident the
thing fell in with his ideas. "It will be awfully inter-

i86 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

esting," he said. "You know, Kipps, you're really
good stuff." (Every sentence now he said "Kipps"
or "my dear Kipps" with a curiously authoritative
intonation.)

"I know," said Kipps, "only there's such a lot of
things I don't seem to be up to some'ow. That's
where the trouble comes in."

They talked and talked, and now Kipps was talk-
ing freely. They rambled over all sorts of things.
Among others Kipps' character was dealt with at
length. Kipps gave valuable lights on it. "When
I'm reely excited," he said, "I don't seem to care what
I do. I'm like that." And again, "I don't like to do
anything under'and. I 7nust speak out.

He picked a piece of cotton from his knee, the fire
grimaced behind his back, and his shadow on the wall
and ceiling was disrespectfully convulsed.

§3

Kipps went to bed at last with an impression of
important things settled, and he lay awake for quite a
long time. He felt he was lucky. He had known —
in fact Buggins and Carshot and Pierce had made it
very clear indeed — that his status in life had changed
and that stupendous adaptations had to be achieved,
but how they were to be effected had driven that
adaptation into the incredible. Here in the simplest,
easiest way was the adapter. The thing had become
possible. Not of course easy, but possible.

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 187

There was much to learn, sheer intellectual toil,
methods of address, bowing, an enormous complexity
of laws. One broken, you are an outcast. How, for
example, would one encounter Lady Punnet? It was
quite possible some day he might really have to do
that. Coote might introduce him. "Lord!" he said
aloud to the darkness between grinning and dismay.
He figured himself going into the Emporium to buy
a tie, for example, and there in the face of Buggins,
Carshot, Pierce and the rest of them, meeting "my
friend. Lady Punnet!" It might not end with Lady
Punnet! His imagination plunged and bolted with
him, galloped, took wings and soared to romantic, to
poetical altitudes.

Suppose some day one m.et Royalty. By accident,
say ! He soared to that ! After all, — twelve hun-
dred a year is a lift, a tremendous lift. How did one
address Royalty? "Your Majesty's Goodness," it
will be, no doubt — something like that — and on the
knees. He became impersonal. Over a thousand a
year made him an Esquire, didn't it? He thought
that was it. In which case, wouldn't he have to be
presented at Court? Velvet cycling breeches like you
wear cycling, and a sword ! What a curious place a
court must be ! Kneeling and bowing, and what was
it Miss Mergle used to talk about? Of course! —
ladies with long trains walking about backward.
Everybody walked about backward at court, he knew,
when not actually on their knees. Perhaps, though,
some people regular stood up to the King ! Talked

i88 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

to him, just as one might tallc to Buggins, say. Cheek
of course ! Dukes, it might be, did that — by permis-
sion? Millionnaires?

From such thoughts this free citizen of our Crown-
ed RepubHc passed insensibly into dreams, turgid
dreams of that vast ascent which constitutes the true-
born Briton's social scheme, which terminates with
retrogressive progression and a bending back.

The next morning he came down to breakfast
looking grave — a man with much before him in the
world.

Kipps made a very special thing of his breakfast.
Daily once hopeless dreams came true then. It had
been customary in the Emporium to supplement Shal-
ford's generous, indeed unlimited, supply of bread
and butter-substitute, by private purchases, and this
had given Kipps very broad, artistic conceptions of
what the meal might be. Now there would be a
cutlet or so or a mutton chop — this splendour Bug-
gins had reported from the great London clubs —
haddock, kipper, whiting or fish-balls, eggs, boiled or
scrambled, or eggs and bacon, kidney also frequently
and sometimes liver. Amidst a garland of such
themes, sausages, black and white puddings, bubble-
and-squeak, fried cabbage and scallops came and
went. Always as camp followers came potted meat
In all varieties, cold bacon, German sausage, brawn,

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 189

marmalade and two sorts of jam, and when he had
finished these he would sit among his plates and
smoke a cigarette and look at all these dishes crowded
round him with a beatific approval. It was his prin-
cipal meal. He was sitting with his cigarette regard-
ing his apartment with that complacency begotten of
a generous plan of feeding successfully realized, when
newspapers and post arrived.

There were several things by the post, tradesmen's
circulars and cards and two pathetic begging letters —
his luck had got into the papers — and there was a
letter from a literary man and a book to enforce his
request for 10/ — to put down Socialism. The book
made it very clear that prompt action on the part of
property owners was becoming urgent, if property
was to last out the year. Kipps dipped in it and was
seriously perturbed. And there was a letter from old
Kipps saying it was difficult to leave the shop and
come over and see him again just yet, but that he had
been to a sale at Lydd the previous day and bought a
few good old books and things it would be difficult to
find the equal of in Folkestone. "They don't know the
value of these things out here," wrote old Kipps, "but
you may depend upon it they are valuable," and a
brief financial statement followed. "There is an en-
graving someone might come along and offer you a
lot of money for one of these days. Depend upon it,
these old things are about the best investment you
could make. . . ."

Old Kipps had long been addicted to sales, and his

190 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. n

nephew's good fortune had converted what had once
been but a looking and a craving — he had rarely even
bid for anything in the old days except the garden
tools or the kitchen gallipots or things like that,
things one gets for sixpence and finds a use for — into
a very active pleasure. Sage and penetrating inspec-
tion, a certain mystery of bearing, tactical bids and
Purchase ! — Purchase ! — the old man had had a good
time.

While KIpps was rereading the begging letters and
wishing he had the sound, clear common sense of
Buggins to help him a little, the Parcels Post brought
along the box from his uncle. It was a large, inse-
cure looking case held together by a few still loyal
nails, and by what the British War Office would have
recognised at once as an Army Corps of string, rags
and odds and ends tied together. Kipps unpacked it
with a table knife, assisted at a critical point by the
poker, and found a number of books and other ob-
jects of an antique type.

There were three bound volumes of early issues of
Chambers' Journal, a copy of Punch's Pocket Book
for 1875, Sturm's Reflections, an early version of
Gill's Geography (slightly torn), an illustrated work
on Spinal Curvature, an early edition of Kirke's Hu-
man Physiology, The Scottish Chiefs and a little vol-
ume on the Language of Flowers. There was a fine
steel engraving, oak-framed and with some rusty
spots, done in the Colossal style and representing the
Handwriting on the Wall. There were also a copper

en. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 191

kettle, a pair of candle snuffers, a brass shoehorn, a
tea caddy to lock, two decanters (one stoppered) and
what was probably a portion of an eighteenth century
child's rattle.

Kipps examined these objects one by one and
wished he knew more about them. Turning over the
pages of the Physiology again he came upon a strik-
ing plate in which a youth of agreeable profile dis-
played his interior in an unstinted manner to the
startled eye. It was a new view of humanity alto-
gether for Kipps, and it arrested his mind.

This anatomised figure made him forget for a
space that he was "practically a gentleman" alto-
gether, and he was still surveying its extraordinary
complications when another reminder of a world
quite outside those spheres of ordered gentility into
which his dreams had carried him overnight, arrived
(following the servant) in the person of Chitterlow.

§5

"IJl-lo/" said Kipps, rising.

"Not busy?" said Chitterlow, enveloping Kipps'
"hand for a moment in one of his own and tossing the
yachting cap upon the monumental carved oak side-
board.

"Only a bit of reading," said Kipps.

"Reading, eh?" Chitterlow cocked the red eye at
the books and other properties for a moment and
then, "I've been expecting you 'round again one
night."

192 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"I been coming 'round," said Kipps. "On'y there's

a chap 'ere . I was coming 'round last night on'y

I met 'im."

He walked to the hearthrug. Chitterlow drifted
around the room for a time, glancing at things as he
talked. "I've altered that play tremendously since I
saw you," he said. "Pulled it all to pieces."

"What play's that, Chit'low?"

"The one we were talking about. You know. You
said something — I don't know if you meant it —
about buying half of it. Not the tragedy. I wouldn't
sell my twin brother a share in that. That's my in-
vestment. That's my Serious Work. No! I mean
that new farce I've been on to. Thing with the busi-
ness about a beetle."

"Oo yes," said Kipps. "/ remember."

"I thought you would. Said you'd take a fourth
share for a hundred pounds. You know."

"I seem to remember something "

"Well, it's all different. Every bit of it. I'll tell
you. You remember what you said about a butterfly?
You got confused, you know — Old Meth. Kept call-
ing the beetle a butterfly and that set me off. I've
made it quite different. Quite different. Instead of
Popplewaddle — thundering good farce name that,
you know ; for all that it came from a Visitors' List —
instead of Popplewaddle getting a beetle down his
neck and rushing about, I've made him a collector —
collects butterflies, and this one you know's a rare one.
Comes in at window, centre." Chitterlow began to

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 193

illustrate with appropriate gestures. "Pop rushes
about after it. Forgets he mustn't let on he's in the

house. After that . Tells 'em. Rare butterfly,

worth lots of money. Some are, you know. Every-
one's on to it after that. Butterfly can't get out of
room, every time it comes out to have a try, rush and
scurry. Well, I've worked on that. Only "

He came very close to Kipps. He held up one hand
horizontally and tapped it in a striking and confi-
dential manner with the fingers of the other. "Some-
thing else," he said. "That's given me a Real Ibsenish
Touch — like the Wild Duck. You know that woman
— I've made her lighter — and she sees it. When
they're chasing the butterfly the third time, she's on I
She looks. 'That's me!' she says. Bif! Pestered
Butterfly. She's the Pestered Butterfly. It's legiti-
mate. Much more legitimate than the Wild Duck —
where there isn't a duck !

"Knock 'em! The very title ought to knock 'em.
I've been working like a horse at it. . . . You'll
have a gold mine in that quarter share, Kipps. . . .
/ don't mind. It's suited me to sell it, and suited you
to buy. Bif!"

Chitterlow interrupted his discourse to ask, "You
haven't any brandy in the house, have you? Not to
drink, you know. But I want just an eggcupful to
pull me steady. My liver's a bit queer. ... It
doesn't matter, if you haven't. Not a bit. I'm like
that. Yes, whiskey'll do. Better!"

Kipps hesitated for a moment, then turned and

194 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

fumbled in the cupboard of his sideboard. Presently
he disinterred a bottle of whiskey and placed It on the
table. Then he put out first one bottle of soda water
and after the hesitation of a moment another. Chit-
terlow picked up the bottle and read the label. "Good
old Methusaleh," he said. Kipps handed him the
corkscrew and then his hand fluttered up to his
mouth. "I'll have to ring now," he said, "to get
glasses." He hesitated for a moment before doing
so, leaning doubtfully as it were towards the bell.

When the housemaid appeared he was standing on
the hearthrug with his legs wide apart, with the bear-
ing of a desperate fellow. And after they had both
had whiskeys — "You know a decent whiskey," Chit-
terlow remarked and took another "just to drink." —
Kipps produced cigarettes and the conversation flow-
ed again.

Chitterlow paced the room. He was, he explained,
taking a day off ; that was why he had come around to
see Kipps. Whenever he thought of any extensive
change in a play he was writing he always took a day
off. In the end it saved time to do so. It prevented
his starting rashly upon work that might have to be
rewritten. There was no good in doing work when
you might have to do it over again, none whatever.

Presently they were descending the steps by the
Parade en route for the Warren, with Chitterlow
doing the talking and going with a dancing drop
from step to step.

They had a great walk, not a long one, but a great

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 195

one. They went up by the Sanatorium, and over the
East Cliff and into that queer little wilderness of slip-
pery and tumbling clay and rock under the chalk
cliffs, a wilderness of thorn and bramble, wild rose
and wayfaring tree, that adds so greatly to Folke-
stone's charm. They traversed its intricacies and
clambered up to the crest of the cliffs at last by a pre-
cipitous path that Chitterlow endowed in some mys-
terious way with suggestions of Alpine adventure.
Every now and then he would glance aside at sea and
cliffs with a fresh boyishness of imagination that
brought back New Romney and the stranded wrecks
to Kipps' memory; but mostly he bored on with his
great obsession of plays and playwriting, and that
empty absurdity that is so serious to his kind, his Art.
That was a thing that needed a monstrous lot of ex-
plaining. Along they went, sometimes abreast, some-
times in single file, up the little paths, and down the
little paths, and In among the bushes and out along
the edge above the beach, and Kipps went along try-
ing ever and again to get an insignificant word in
edgeways, and the gestures of Chitterlow flew wide
and far and his great voice rose and fell, and he said
this and he said that and he biffed and banged into
the circumambient Inane.

It was assumed that they were embarked upon no
more trivial enterprise than the Reform of the Brit-
ish Stage, and Kipps found himself classed with many
opulent and even royal and noble amateurs — the
Honourable Thomas Norgate came In here — who

196 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

had interested themselves in the practical realisation
of high ideals about the Drama. Only he had a finer
understanding of these things, and instead of being
preyed upon by the common professional — "and they
are a lot," said Chitterlow; "I haven't toured for
nothing" — he would have Chitterlow. Kipps gath-
ered few details. It was clear he had bought the
quarter of a farcical comedy — practically a gold mine
— and it would appear it would be a good thing to
buy the half. A suggestion, or the suggestion of a
suggestion, floated out that he should buy the whole
play and produce it forthwith. It seemed he was to
produce the play upon a royalty system of a new sort,
whatever a royalty system of any sort might be. Then
there was some doubt, after all, whether that farcical
comedy was in itself suflicient to revolutionise the
present lamentable state of the British Drama. Bet-
ter perhaps for such a purpose was that tragedy — as
yet unfinished — which was to display all that Chitter-
low knew about women, and which was to centre
about a Russian nobleman embodying the funda-
mental Chitterlow personality. Then it became
clearer that Kipps was to produce several plays.
Kipps was to produce a great number of plays. Kipps
was to found a National Theatre.

It is probable that Kipps would have expressed
some sort of disavowal, if he had known how to ex-
press it. Occasionally his face assumed an expression
of whistling meditation, but that was as far as he got
towards protest.

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 197

In the clutch of Chltterlow and the Incalculable,
Kipps came round to the house in Fenchurch Street
and was there made to participate in the midday
meal. He came to the house, forgetting certain con-
fidences, and was reminded of the existence of a Mrs.
Chitterlow (with the finest completely untrained Con-
tralto voice in England) by her appearance. She had
an air of being older than Chitterlow, although prob-
ably she wasn't, and her hair was a reddish brown,
streaked with gold. She was dressed in one of those
complaisant garments that are dressing gowns or tea
gowns or bathing wraps or rather original evening
robes according to the exigencies of the moment —
from the first Kipps was aware that she possessed a
warm and rounded neck, and her well-moulded arms
came and vanished from the sleeves — and she had
large, expressive brown eyes that he discovered ever
and again fixed in an enigmatical manner upon his
own.

A simple but sufficient meal had been distributed
with careless spontaneity over the little round table in
the room with the photographs and looking glass, and
when a plate had by Chitterlow's direction been taken
from under the marmalade in the cupboard and the
kitchen fork and a knife that was not loose in its
handle had been found for Kipps they began and
she had evidently heard of Kipps before, and he
made a tumultuous repast. Chitterlow ate with quiet
enormity, but it did not interfere with the flow of
his talk. He introduced Kipps to his wife very briefly;

198 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

made It vaguely evident that the production of the
comedy was the thing chiefly settled. His reach ex-
tended over the table, and he troubled nobody. When
Mrs. Chitterlow, who for a little while seemed so-
cially self-conscious, reproved him for taking a potato
with a jab of his fork, he answered, "Well, you
shouldn't have married a man of Genius," and from
a subsequent remark it was perfectly clear that Chit-
terlow's standing in this respect was made no secret
of in his household.

They drank old Methusaleh and syphon soda, and
there was no clearing away, they just sat among the
plates and things, and Mrs. Chitterlow took her hus-
band's tobacco pouch and made a cigarette and
smoked and blew smoke and looked at Kipps with her
large, brown eyes. Kipps had seen cigarettes smoked
by ladies before, "for fun," but this was real smok-
ing. It frightened him rather. He felt he must not
encourage this lady — at any rate in Chitterlow's
presence.

They became very cheerful after the repast, and
as there was now no waste to deplore, such as one
experiences in the Avindy, open air, Chitterlow gave
his voice full vent. He fell to praising Kipps very
highly and loudly. He said he had known Kipps was
the right sort, he had seen it from the first, almost
before he got up out of the mud on that memorable
night. "You can," he said,' "sometimes. That was

why " he stopped, but he seemed on the verge of

explaining that it was his certainty of Kipps being the

CH. I THE NEW CONDITIONS 199

right sort had led him to confer this great Fortune
upon him. He left that impression. He threw
out a number of long sentences and material for
sentences of a highly philosophical and incoherent
character about Coincidences. It became evident he
considered dramatic criticism in a perilously low con-
dition.

About four Kipps found himself stranded, as it
were, by a receding Chitterlow on a seat upon the
Leas.

He was chiefly aware that Chitterlow was an over-
whelming personality. He puffed his cheeks and
blew.

No doubt this was seeing life, but had he particu-
larly wanted to see life that day? In a way Chitter-
low had interrupted him. The day he had designed
for himself was altogether different from this. He
had been going to read through a precious little vol-
ume called "Don't" that Coote had sent round for
him, a book of invaluable hints, a summary of British
deportment that had only the one defect of being at
points a little out of date.

That reminded him he had intended to perform a
difficult exercise called an Afternoon Call upon the
Cootes, as a preliminary to doing it in deadly earnest
upon the Walshinghams. It was no good to-day,
anyhow, now.

He came back to Chitterlow. He would have to
explain to Chitterlow he was taking too much for
granted, he would have to do that. It was so difficult

200 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

to do in Chitterlow's presence though; in his absence
it was easy enough. This half share, and taking a
theatre and all of it, was going too far.

The quarter share was right enough, he sup-
posed, but even that ! A hundred pounds ! What

wealth is there left in the world after one has paid out
a hundred pounds from it ?

He had to recall that in a sense Chitterlow had
indeed brought him his fortune before he could face
even that.

You must not think too hardly of him. To Kipps
you see there was as yet no such thing as proportion
in these matters. A hundred pounds went to his hori-
zon. A hundred pounds seemed to him just exactly
as big as any other large sum of money.

CHAPTER II

THE WALSHINGHAMS
§1

The Cootes live in a little house in Bouverie
Square with a tangle of Virginia creeper up the
verandah.

Kipps had been troubled in his mind about knock-
ing double or single — it is these things show what a
man is made of — but happily there was a bell.

A queer little maid, with a big cap, admitted Kipps
and took him through a bead curtain and a door into
a little drawing-room, with a black and gold piano, a
glazed bookcase, a Moorish cosy corner and a draped
looking glass over-mantel bright with Regent Street
ornaments and photographs of various intellectual
lights. A number of cards of invitation to meetings
and the match list of a Band of Hope cricket club
were stuck into the looking glass frame with Coote's
name as a Vice-President. There was a bust of
Beethoven over the bookcase and the walls were thick
with conscientiously executed but carelessly selected
"views" in oil and water colours and gilt frames. At
the end of the room facing the light was a portrait

201

202 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

that struck Kipps at first as being Coote in spectacles
and feminine costume and that he afterwards decided
must be Coote's mother. Then the original appeared
and he discovered that it was Coote's elder and only
sister who kept house for him. She wore her hair in
a knob behind, and the sight of the knob suggested to
Kipps an explanation for a frequent gesture of
Coote's, a patting exploratory movement to the back
of his head. And then it occurred to him that this
was quite an absurd idea altogether.

She said "Mr. Kipps, I believe," and Kipps laugh-
ed pleasantly and said, "That's it!" and then she told
him that "Chester" had gone down to the art school
to see about sending off some drawings or other and
that he would be back soon. Then she asked Kipps
if he painted, and showed him the pictures on the
wall. Kipps asked her where each one was "of," and
when she showed him some of the Leas slopes he said
he never would have recognised them. He said It
was funny how things looked in a picture very often.
"But they're awfully good'* he said. "Did you do
them ?" He would look at them with his neck arched
like a swan's, his head back and on one side and then
suddenly peer closely into them. "They are good. I
wish I could paint." "That's what Chester says," she
answered. "I tell him he has better things to do."
Kipps seemed to get on very well with her.

Then Coote came in and they left her and went
upstairs together and had a good talk about reading
and the Rules of Life. Or rather Coote talked, and

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 203

the praises of thought and reading were in his
mouth.

You must figure Coote's study, a little bedroom put
to studious uses, and over the mantel an array of
things he had been led to believe indicative of culture
and refinement, an autotype of Rossetti's "Annuncia-
tion," an autotype of Watt's "Minotaur," a Swiss
carved pipe with many joints and a photograph of
Amiens Cathedral (these two the spoils of travel), a
phrenological bust and some broken fossils from the
Warren. A rotating bookshelf carried the Encyclo-
paedia Britannica (tenth edition), and on the top of
it a large official looking, age grubby, envelope bear-
ing the mystic words, "On His Majesty's Service," a
number or so of the "Bookman," and a box of cigar-
ettes were lying. A table under the window bore a
little microscope, some dust in a saucer, some grimy
glass slips and broken cover glasses, for Coote had
"gone in for" biology a little. The longer side of
the room was given over to bookshelves, neatly edged
with pinked American cloth, and with an array of
books — no worse an array of books than you find in
any public library; an almost haphazard accumula-
tion of obsolete classics, contemporary successes, the
Hundred Best Books (including Samuel Warren's
"Ten Thousand a Year") old school books, direc-
tories, the Times Atlas, Ruskin in bulk, Tennyson
complete in one volume, Longfellow, Charles Kings-
ley, Smiles and Mrs. Humphry Ward, a guide book
or so, several medical pamphlets, odd magazine num-

204 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

bers, and much indescribable rubbish — in fact a com-
pendium of the contemporary British mind. And in
front of this array stood Kipps, ill-taught and un-
trained, respectful, awestricken and, for a moment at
any rate, willing to learn, while Coote, the exemplary
Coote, talked to him like a bishop of reading and the
virtue in books.

"Nothing enlarges the mind," said Coote, "like
Travel and Books. . . . And they're both so
easy nowadays, and so cheap !"

"I've often wanted to 'ave a good go in at read-
ing," Kipps replied.

"You'd hardly believe," Coote said, "how much
you can get out of books. Provided you avoid trashy
reading, that is. You ought to make a rule, Kipps,
and read one Serious Book a week. Of course, we
can Learn even from Novels, Nace Novels that is,
but it isn't the same thing as serious reading. I made
a rule, One Serious Book and One Novel — no more.
There's some of the serious books I've been reading
lately — on that table; Sartor Resartus — Mrs. Twad-
dletome's Pond Life, the Scottish Chiefs, Life and
Letters of Dean Farrar. . . ."

§2

There came at last the sound of a gong and Kipps
descended to tea in that state of nervous apprehension
at the difficulties of eating and drinking that his
Aunt's knuckle rapplngs had implanted in him for-

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 205

ever. Over Coote's shoulder he became aware of a
fourth person In the Moorish cosy corner, and he
turned, leaving Incomplete something Incoherent he
was saying to Miss Coote about his modest respect
and desire for literature to discover this fourth person
was Miss Helen Walshlngham, hatless and looking
very much at home.

She rose at once with an extended hand to meet his
hesitation.

"You're stopping In Folkestone, Mr. Kipps?"

" 'Ere on a bit of business," said KIpps. "I thought
you was away In Bruges."

"That's later," said Miss Walshlngham. "We're
stopping until my brother's holiday begins and we're
trying to let our house. Where are you staying in
Folkestone?"

"I got a 'ouse of mine — on the Leas."

"I've heard all about your good fortune — this
afternoon."

"Isn't It a Go!" said Kips. "I 'aven't nearly got
to believe its reely 'appened yet. When that Mr.
Bean told me of it you could 'ave knocked me down
with a feather. . . . It's a tremenjous change
for me."

He discovered Miss Coote was asking him whether
he took milk and sugar. "/ don't mind," said KIpps.
"Just as you like."

Coote became active handing tea and bread and
butter. It was thinly cut, and the bread was rather
new, and the half of the slice that Kipps took fell

2o6 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

upon the floor. He had been holding it by the edge,
for he was not used to this migratory method of tak-
ing tea without plates or table. This little incident
ruled him out of the conversation for a time, and
when he came to attend to it again they were talking
about something or other prodigious — a performer
of some sort — that was coming, called, it seemed,
"Padrooski." So Kipps, who had quietly dropped
into a chair, ate his bread and butter, said "No, thenk
you" to any more, and by this discreet restraint got
more freedom with his cup and saucer.

Apart from the confusion natural to tea, he was in
a state of tremulous excitement on account of the
presence of Miss Walshingham. He glanced from
Miss Coote to her brother and then at Helen. He re-
garded her over the top of his cup as he drank. Here
she was, solid and real. It was wonderful. He re-
marked, as he had done at times before, the easy flow
of the dark hair back from her brow over her ears,
the shapeliness of the white hands that came out from
her simple white cuffs, the delicate pencilling of her
brow.

Presently she turned her face to him almost sud-
denly, and smiled with the easiest assurance of friend-
ship.

"You will go, I suppose," she said, and added, "to
the Recital."

"If I'm in Folkstone I shall," said Kipps, clearing
away a little hoarseness. "I don't knozv much about
music, but what I do know I like."

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 207

"I'm sure you'll like PaderewskI," she said.

•'If you do," he said, "I dessay I shall."

He found Coote very kindly taking his cup.

"Do you think of living in Folkestone?" asked
Miss Coote, in a tone of proprietorship, from the
hearthrug.

"No," said Kipps, "that's jest it — I hardly know."
He also said that he wanted to look around a bit be-
fore doing anything. "There's so much to consider,"
said Coote, smoothing the back of his head.

"I may go back to New Romney for a bit," said
Kipps. "I got an Uncle and Aunt there. I reely
don't know."

Helen regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.

"You must come and see us," she said, "before we
go to Bruges."
■ "Oo, rather!" said Kipps. "If I may."

"Yes, do," she said, and suddenly stood up before
Kipps could formulate an enquiry when he should
call.

"You're sure you can spare that drawing board?"
she said to Miss Coote, and the conversation passed
out of range.

And when he had said "Good-bye" to Miss Walsh-
ingham and she had repeated her invitation to call,
he went upstairs again with Coote to look out cer-
tain initiatory books they had had under discussion.
And then Kipps, blowing very resolutely, went back
to his own place, bearing in his arm (i) Sesame
and Lilies, (2) Sir George Tressady, (3) an anony-

2o8 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

mous book on "Vitality" that Coote particularly es-
teemed. And, having got to his own sitting-room, he
opened Sesame and Lilies and read it with ruthless de-
termination for some time.

§3

Presently he leant back and gave himself up to the
business of trying to imagine just exactly what Miss
Walshingham could have thought of him when she
saw him. Doubts about the precise effect of the grey
flannel suit began to trouble him. He turned to the
mirror over the mantel, and then got into a chair to
study the hang of the trousers. It looked all right.
Luckily, she had not seen the Panama hat. He knew
that he had the brim turned up wrong, but he could
not find out which way the brim was right. However,
that she had not seen. He might perhaps ask at the
shop where he bought it.

He meditated for awhile on his reflected face —
doubtful whether he liked it or not — and then got
down again and flitted across to the sideboard where
there lay two little books, one in a cheap, magnificent
cover of red and gold, and the other in green canvas.
The former was called, as its cover witnessed, "Man-
ners and Rules of Good Society, by a Member of the
Aristocracy," and after the cover had indulged in a
band of gilded decoration, light-hearted but natural
under the circumstances, it added "TWENTY-
FIRST EDITION." The second was that admir-

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 209

able classic, "The Art of Conversing." Kipps re-
turned with these to his seat, placed the two before
him, opened the latter with a sigh and flattened it un-
der his hand.

Then with knitted brows he began to read onward
from a mark, his lips moving.

"Having thus acquired possession of an idea, the
little ship should not be abruptly launched into deep
waters, but should be first permitted to glide gently
and smoothly into the shallows, that is to say, the con-
versation should not be commenced by broadly and
roundly stating a fact, or didactically expressing an
opinion, as the subject would be thus virtually or sum-
marily disposed of, or perhaps be met with a 'Really'
or 'Indeed,' or some equally brief monosyllabic re-
ply. If an opposite opinion were held by the person
to whom the remark were addressed, he might not, if
a stranger, care to express it in the form of a direct
contradiction, or actual dissent. To glide impercept-
ibly into conversation is the object to be attained."

At this point Mr. Kipps rubbed his fingers through
his hair with an expression of some perplexity and
went back to the beginning.

§4

When Kipps made his call on the Walshinghams,
it all happened so differently from the "Manners and
Rules" prescription ("Paying Calls") that he was
quite lost from the very outset. Instead of the foot-
man or maidservant proper in these cases, Miss

2IO MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Walshingham opened the door to him herself. "I'm
so glad you've come," she said, with one of her rare
smiles.

She stood aside for him to enter the rather nar-
row passage.

"I thought I'd call," he said, retaining his hat and
stick.

She closed the door and led the way to a little
drawing-room, which impressed Kipps as being
smaller and less emphatically coloured than that of
the Cootes, and in which at first only a copper bowl
of white poppies upon the brown tablecloth caught
his particular attention.

"You won't think it unconventional to come in,
Mr. Kipps, will you?" she remarked. "Mother is
out."

"I don't mind," he said, smiling amiably, "if you
don't."

She walked around the table and stood regarding
him across it, with that same look between specula-
tive curiosity and appreciation that he remembered
from the last of the art class meetings.

"I wondered whether you would call or whether
you wouldn't before you left Folkestone."

"I'm not leaving Folkestone for a bit, and any'ow,
I should have called on you."

"Mother will be sorry she was out. I've told her
about you, and she wants, I know, to meet you."

"I saw 'er — if that was 'er — in the shop," said
Kipps.

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 2 1 1

"Yes — you did, didn't you! . . . She has
gone out to make some duty calls, and I didn't
go. I had something to write. I write a little, you
know."

"Reely!"saidKipps.

"It's nothing much," she said, "and it comes to
nothing." She glanced at a little desk near the win-
dow, on which there lay some paper. "One must do
something." She broke off abruptly. "Have you
seen our outlook?" she asked and walked to the win-
dow, and Kipps came and stood beside her. "We
look on the Square. It might be worse, you know.
That outporter's truck there is horrid — and the rail-
ings, but it's better than staring one's social replica
In the face, isn't it? It's pleasant in early spring —
bright green, laid on with a dry brush — and It's pleas-
ant In autumn."

"I like It," said Kipps. "That laylock there Is
pretty, Isn't it?"

"Children come and pick it at times," she re-
marked.

"I dessay they do," said Kipps.

He rested on his hat and stick and looked appre-
ciatively out of the window, and she glanced at him
for one swift moment. A suggestion that might have
come from the Art of Conversing came Into his head.
"Have you a garden?" he said.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Only a little one,"
she said, and then, "perhaps you would like to see it."

"I like gardenin'," said Kipps, with memories of a

212 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

pennyworth of nasturtiums he had once trained over
his uncle's dustbin.

She led the way with a certain rehef.

They emerged through a four seasons coloured
glass door to a little iron verandah that led by iron
steps to a minute walled garden. There was just
room for a patch of turf and a flower-bed; one sturdy
variegated Euonymus grew in the corner. But the
early June flowers, the big narcissus, snow upon the
mountains, and a fine show of yellow wallflowers
shone gay.

"That's our garden," said Helen. "It's not a very
big one, is it?"

"I like it," said Kipps.

"It's small," she said, "but this is the day of small
things."

Kipps didn't follow that.

"If you were writing when I came," he remarked,
"I'm interrupting you."

She turned round with her back to the railing and
rested, leaning on her hands. "I had finished," she
said. "I couldn't get on."

"Were you making up something?" asked Kipps.

There was a little interval before she smiled. "I
try — quite vainly — to write stories," she said. "One
must do something. I don't knoAv whether I shall
ever do any good — at that — anyhow. It seems so
hopeless. And, of course, one must study the popular
taste. But, now my brother has gone to London, 1
get a lot of leisure."

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 213

"I seen your brother, 'aven't I ?"

"He came to the class once or twice. Very prob-
ably you have. He's gone to London to pass his ex-
aminations and become a solicitor. And then, I sup-
pose, he'll have a chance. Not much, perhaps, even
then. But he's luckier than I am."

"You got your classes and things."

"They ought to satisfy me. But they don't. I
suppose I'm ambitious. We both are. And we
hadn't much of a springboard." She glanced over
his shoulder at the cramped little garden with an air
of reference in her gesture.

"I should think you could do anything if you
wanted to," said Kipps.

"As a matter of fact I can't do anything I
want to."

"You done a good deal."

"What?"

"Well, didn't you pass one of these here University
things?"

"Oh! I matriculated!"

"I should think I was no end of a swell if / did,
I know that."

"Mr. Kipps, do you know how many people ma-
triculate into London University every year?"

"How many then?"

"Between two and three thousand."

"Well, just think how many don't !"

Her smile came again, and broke into a laugh.
"Oh, they don't count," she said, and then, realising

214 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

that might penetrate Kipps if he was left with it, she
hurried on to, "The fact is, I'm a discontented person,
Mr. Kipps. Folkestone, you know, is a Sea Front,
and it values people by sheer vulgar prosperity.
We're not prosperous, and we live in a back street.
We have to live here because this is our house. It's a
mercy we haven't to 'let.' One feels one hasn't op-
portunities. If one had, I suppose one wouldn't use
them. Still "

Kipps felt he was being taken tremendously into
her confidence. "That's jest it," he said, very sagely.

He leant forward on his stick and said, very ear-
nestly, "I believe you could do anything you wanted
to, if you tried."

She threw out her hands in disavowal.

"I know," said he, very sagely and nodding his
head. "I watched you once or twice when you were
teaching that wood-carving class."

For some reason this made her laugh — a rather
pleasant laugh, and that made Kipps feel a very
witty and successful person. "It's very evident," she
said, "that you're one of those rare people who be-
lieve in me, Mr. Kipps," to which he answered, "Oo,
I do!" and then suddenly they became aware of Mrs.
Walshingham coming along the passage. In another
moment she appeared through the four seasons door,
bonneted and ladylike, and a little faded, exactly as
Kipps had seen her in the shop. Kipps felt a certain
apprehension at her appearance, in spite of the reas-
surances he had had from Coote,

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 2 1 5

"Mr. Kipps has called on us," said Helen, and
Mrs. Walshingham said it was very kind of him,
and added that new people didn't call on them very
much nowadays. There was nothing of the scandal-
ised surprise Kipps had seen in the shop; she had
heard, perhaps, he was a gentleman now. In the
shop he had thought her rather jaded and haughty,
but he had scarcely taken her hand, which responded
to his touch with a friendly pressure, before he knew
how mistaken he had been. She then told her daugh-
ter that someone called Mrs. Wace had been out, and
turned to Kipps again to ask him if he had had tea.
Kipps said he had not, and Helen moved towards
some mysterious interior. "But / say," said Kipps;
"don't you on my account !"

Helen vanished, and he found himself alone with
Mrs. Walshingham, which, of course, made him
breathless and Boreas-looking for a moment.

"You were one of Helen's pupils in the wood-
carving class?" asked Mrs. Walshingham, regard-
ing him with the quiet watchfulness proper to her
position.

"Yes," said Kipps, "that's 'ow I 'ad the pleas-
ure "

"She took a great interest in her wood-carving
class. She is so energetic, you know, and it gives her
an Outlet."

"I thought she taught something splendid."

"Everyone says she did very well. Helen, I think,
would do anything well that she undertook to do.

2i6 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

She's so very clever. And she throws herself into
things so."

She untied her bonnet strings with a pleasant In-
formality.

"She has told me all about her class. She used to
be full of It. And about your cut hand."

"LorM" said Kipps; "fancy, telling that!"

"Oh, yes ! And how brave you were."

(Though, Indeed, Helen's chief detail had been
his remarkable expedient for checking bloodshed.)

KIpps became bright pink. "She said you didn't
seem to feel it a bit."

KIpps felt he would have to spend weeks over
"The Art of Conversing."

While he still hung fire Helen returned with the ap-
paratus for afternoon tea upon a tray.

"Do you mind pulling out the table?" asked Mrs.
Walshlngham.

That, again, was very homelike. KIpps put down
his hat and stick In the corner and, amidst an Iron
thunder, pulled out a little, rusty, green-painted table,
and then In the easiest manner followed Helen In to
get chairs.

So soon as he had got rid of his teacup — he refused
all food, of course, and they were merciful — he be-
came wonderfully at his ease. Presently he was talk-
ing. He talked quite modestly and simply about his
changed condition and his difficulties and plans. He
spread what Indeed had an air of being all his simple
little soul before his eyes. In a little while his clipped,

CH. II THE WALSHINGHAMS 217

defective accent had become less perceptible to their
ears, and they began to realise, as the girl with the
freckles had long since realised, that there were pass-
able aspects of KIpps. He confided, he submitted, and
for both of them he had the realest, the most seduc-
tively flattering untertone of awe and reverence.

He stopped about two hours, having forgotten how
terribly incorrect it is to stay at such a length. They
did not mind at all.

CHAPTER III

ENGAGED

Within two months, within a matter of three and
fifty days, Kipps had clambered to the battlements
of Heart's Desire.

It all became possible by the Walshinghams — it
would seem at Coote's instigation — deciding, after
all, not to spend the holidays at Bruges. Instead, they
remained in Folkestone, and this happy chance gave
Kipps just all these opportunities of which he stood
in need.

His crowning day was at Lympne, and long before
the summer warmth began to break, while indeed
August still flamed on high. They had organized —
no one seemed to know who suggested it first — a wa-
ter party on the still reaches of the old military canal
at Hythe, the canal that was to have stopped Napo-
leon if the sea failed us, and they were to picnic by
the brick bridge, and afterwards to clamber to
Lympne Castle. The host of the gathering, it was
understood very clearly, was Kipps.

They went, a merry party. The canal was weedy,
with only a few inches of water at the shallows, and

218

CH. Ill ENGAGED 219

so they went in three Canadian canoes. Kipps had
learned to paddle — it had been his first athletic accom-
plishment, and his second — with the last three or four
of ten private lessons still to come — was to be cycling.
But Kipps did not paddle at all badly; muscles hard-
ened by lifting pieces of cretonne could cut a respecta-
ble figure by the side of Coote's executions, and the
girl with the freckles, the girl who understood him,
came in his canoe. They raced the Walshinghams,
brother and sister; and Coote, in a liquefying state
and blowing mightily, but still persistent and always
quite polite and considerate, toiled behind with Mrs.
Walshingham. She could not be expected to paddle
(though, of course, she "offered") and she reclined
upon specially adjusted cushions under a black and
white sunshade and watched Kipps and her daughter,
and feared at intervals that Coote was getting hot.

They were all more or less in holiday costume, the
eyes of the girls looked out under the shade of wide-
brimmed hats; even the freckled girl was unexpect-
edly pretty, and Helen, swinging sunlit to her paddle,
gave Kipps, almost for the first time, the suggestion
of a graceful body. Kipps was arrayed in the com-
pletest boating costume, and when his fashionable
Panama was discarded and his hair blown into dis-
order he became, in his white flannels, as sightly as
most young men. His complexion was a notable
asset.

Things favoured him, the day favoured him, every-
one favoured him. Young Walshingham, the girl

220 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

with the freckles, Coote and Mrs. Walshingham,
were playing up to him in the most benevolent way,
and between the landing place and Lympne, Fortune,
to crown their efforts, had placed a small, convenient
field entirely at the disposal of an adolescent bull.
Not a big, real, resolute bull, but, on the other hand,
no calf; a young bull, in the same stage of emotional
development as Kipps, "standing where the two
rivers meet." Detachedly our party drifted towards
him.

When they landed young Walshingham, with the
simple directness of a brother, abandoned his sister
to Kipps and secured the freckled girl, leaving Coote
to carry Mrs. Walshingham's light wool wrap. He
started at once, in order to put an effectual distance
between himself and his companion, on the one hand,
and a certain persuasive chaperonage that went with
Coote, on the other. Young Walshingham, I think
I hav^e said, was dark, with a Napoleonic profile,
and it was natural for him, therefore, to be a bold
thinker and an epigrammatic speaker, and he had
long ago discovered great possibilities of appreciation
in the freckled girl. He was in a very happy frame
that day because he had just been entrusted with the
management of Kipps' affairs (old Bean inexplicably
dismissed), and that was not a bad beginning for a
solicitor of only a few months' standing, and, more-
over, he had been reading Nietzsche, and he thought
that in all probability he was the Non-Moral Over-
man referred to by that writer. He wore fairly large-

CH. Ill ENGAGED 221

sized hats. He wanted to expand the theme of the
Non-Moral Overman in the ear of the freckled girl,
to say it over, so to speak, and in order to seclude
his exposition they went aside from the direct path
and trespassed through a coppice, avoiding the youth-
ful bull. They escaped to these higher themes but
narrowly, for Coote and Mrs. Walshingham, subtle
chaperones both, and each indisposed for excellent
reasons to encumber Kipps and Helen, were hot upon
their heels. These two kept direct route to the stile
of the bull's field, and the sight of the animal at once
awakened Coote's innate aversion to brutality in any
shape or form. He said the stiles were too high,
and that they could do better by going around by the
hedge, and Mrs. Walshingham, nothing loath, agreed.
This left the way clear for Kipps and Helen, and
they encountered the bull. Helen did not observe the
bull, but Kipps did; but, that afternoon at any rate,
he was equal to facing a lion. And the bull really
came at them. It was not an affair of the bull-ring
exactly, no desperate rushes and gorings; but he
came; he regarded them with a large, wicked, bluish
eye, opened a mouth below his moistly glistening nose
and booed, at any rate, if he did not exactly bellow,
and he shook his head wickedly and showed that toss-
ing was in his mind. Helen was frightened, without
any loss of dignity, and Kipps went extremely white.
But he was perfectly calm, and he seemed to her to
have lost the last vestiges of his accent and his social
shakiness. He directed her to walk quietly towards

222 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

the stile, and made an oblique advance towards the
bull.

"You be orf!" he said. . . .

When Helen was well over the stile KIpps with-
drew In good order. He got over the stile under
cover of a feint, and the thing was done — a small
thing, no doubt, but just enough to remove from
Helen's mind an incorrect deduction that a man who
was so terribly afraid of a teacup as KIpps must neces-
sarily be abjectly afraid of everything else in the
world. In her moment of reaction she went perhaps
too far in the opposite direction. Hitherto KIpps
had always had a certain flimslness of effect for her.
Now suddenly he was discovered solid. He was dis-
covered possible In many new ways. Here, after all,
was the sort of back a woman can get behind !

As so these heirs of the immemorial ages went
past the turf-crowned mass of Portus Lemanus up
the steep slopes towards the mediaeval castle on the
crest the thing was also manifest in her eyes.

§2

Everyone who stays In Folkstone gets, sooner or
later, to Lympne. The castle became a farmhouse
long ago, and the farmhouse, itself now ripe and ven-
erable, wears the walls of the castle as a little man
wears a big man's coat. The kindliest of farm ladles
entertains a perpetual stream of visitors and shows
her vast mangle, and her big kitchen, and takes you

en. Ill ENGAGED 223

out upon the sunniest little terrace garden in all the
world, and you look down the sheep-dotted slopes to
where, beside the canal and under the trees, the
crumpled memories of Rome sleep forever. For
hither to this lonely spot the galleys once came, the
legions, the emperors, masters of the world. The
castle is but a thing of yesterday. King Stephen's
time or thereabout, in that retrospect. One climbs the
pitch of perforation, and there one is lifted to the
centre of far more than a hemisphere of view. Away
below one's feet, almost at the bottom of the hill, the
Marsh begins, and spreads and spreads in a mighty
crescent that sweeps about the sea, the Marsh dotted
with the church towers of forgotten mediaeval towns
and breaking at last into the low, blue hills of Win-
chelsea and Hastings ; east hangs France, between the
sea and the sky, and round the north, bounding the
wide prospectives of farms and houses and woods, the
Downs, with their hangers and chalk pits, sustain the
passing shadows of the sailing clouds.

And here it was, high out of the world of every-
day, and in the presence of spacious beauty, that
Kipps and Helen found themselves agreeably alone.
All six, it had seemed, had been coming for the Keep,
but Mrs. Walshingham had hesitated at the horrid
little stairs, and then suddenly felt faint, and so she
and the freckled girl had remained below, walking
up and down in the shadow of the house, and Coote
had remembered they were all out of cigarettes, and
had taken off young Walshingham into the village.

224 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

There had been shouting to explain between
ground and parapet, and then Helen and Kipps
turned again to the view, and commended it and fell
silent.

Helen sat fearlessly in an embrasure, and Kipps
stood beside her.

"I've always been fond of scenery," Kipps re-
peated, after an interval.

Then he went off at a tangent. "D'you reely think
that was right what Coote was saying?"

She looked interrogation.

"About my name?"

"Being really C-U-Y-P-S? I have my doubts. I

thought at first . What makes Mr. Coote add

an S to Cuyp?"

"I dunno," said Kipps, foiled. "I was jest think-
ing— "

She shot one wary glance at him and then turned
her eyes to the sea.

Kipps was out for a space. He had intended to
lead from this question to the general question of sur-
names and change of names; it had seemed a light
and witty way of saying something he had in mind,
and suddenly he perceived that this was an unutter-
ably vulgar and silly project. The hitch about that
"s" had saved him. He regarded her profile for a
moment, framed in weather-beaten stone, and backed
by the blue elements.

He dropped the question of his name out of exist-
ence and spoke again of the view. "When I see

CH. Ill ENGAGED 225

scenery, and things that are beautiful, it makes me
feel "

She looked at him suddenly, and saw him fumbling
for his words.

"Silly like," he said.

She took him in with her glance, the old look of
proprietorship it was, touched with a certain warmth.
She spoke in a voice as unambiguous as her eyes.
"You needn't," she said. "You know, Mr. Kipps,
you hold yourself too cheap."

Her eyes and words smote him with amazement.
He stared at her like a man who awakens. She
looked down.

"You mean " he said; and then, "don't you

hold me cheap?"

She glanced up again and shook her head.

"But — for instance — you don't think of me — as an
equal like."

"Why not?"

"Oo! But reely "

His heart beat very fast.

"If I thought," he said, and then, "you know so
much."

"That's nothing," she said.

Then, for a long time, as it seemed to them, both
kept silence, a silence that said and accomplished
many things.

"I know what I am," he said, at length.
If I thought it was possible ... If I thought
you ... I believe I could do anything "

226 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

He stopped, and she sat downcast and strikingly
still.

"Miss Walshingham," he said, "is it possible that
you . . . could care for me enough to — to 'elp
me? Miss Walshingham, do you care for me at all?"

It seemed she was never going to answer. She
looked up at him. "I think," she said, "you are the
most generous — look at what you have done for my
brother — the most generous and the most modest of
men. And this afternoon — I thought you were the
bravest."

She turned her head, glanced down, waved her
hand to someone on the terrace below, and stood up.

"Mother is signalling," she said. "We must go
down."

Kipps became polite and deferential by habit, but
his mind was a tumult that had nothing to do with
that.

He moved before her towards the little door that
opened on the winding stairs — "always precede a
lady down or up stairs" — and then on the second step
he turned resolutely. "But," he said, looking up out
of the shadow, flannel-clad and singularly like a
man.

She looked down on him, with her hand upon the
stone lintel.

He held out his hand as if to help her. "Can you
tell me ?" he said. "You must know "

"What?"

"If you care for me?"

CH. Ill ENGAGED 227

She did not answer for a long time. It was
as if everything in the world had drawn to the
breaking point, and in a minute must certainly
break.

"Yes," she said, at last, "I know."

Abruptly, by some impalpable sign, he knew what
the answer would be, and he remained still.

She bent down over him and softened to her won-
derful smile.

"Promise me," she insisted.

He promised with his still face.

"If / do not hold you cheap, you will never hold
yourself cheap "

"If you do not hold me cheap, you mean?"

She bent down quite close beside him. "I hold
you," she said, and then whispered, "dear."

"Me?"

She laughed aloud.

He was astonished beyond measure. He stipulated,
lest there might be some misconception, "You will
marry me?"

She was laughing, inundated by the sense of boun-
tiful power, of possession and success. He looked
quite a nice little man to have. "Yes," she laughed.
"What else could I mean?" and, "Yes."

He felt as a praying hermit might have felt,
snatched from the midst of his quiet devotions, his
modest sackcloth and ashes, and hurled neck and crop
over the glittering gates of Paradise, smack among
the iridescent wings, the bright-eyed Cherubim. He

228 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

felt like some lowly and righteous man dynamited
into Bliss.

His hand tightened upon the rope that steadies one
upon the stairs of stone. He was for kissing her
hand and did not.

He said not a word more. He turned about, and
with something very like a scared expression on his
face led the way into the obscurity of their descent.

§3

Everyone seemed to understand. Nothing was
said, nothing was explained, the merest touch of the
eyes sufficed. As they clustered in the castle gateway
Coote, Kipps remembered afterwards, laid hold of
his arm as if by chance and pressed it. It was quite
evident he knew. His eyes, his nose, shone with
benevolent congratulations, shone, too, with the sense
of a good thing conducted to its climax. Mrs. Walsh-
ingham, who had seemed a little fatigued by the hill,
recovered, and was even obviously stirred by affection
for her daughter. There was, in passing, a motherly
caress. She asked Kipps to give her his arm in walk-
ing down the steep. Kipps ina sort of dream obeyed.
He found himself trying to attend to her, and soon he
was attending.

She and Kipps talked like sober, responsible people
and went slowly, while the others drifted down the
hill together, a loose little group of four. He won-
dered momentarily what they would talk about and
then sank into his conversation with Mrs. Walshing-

CH. Ill ENGAGED 229

ham. He conversed, as it were, out of his super-
ficial personality, and his inner self lay stunned in un-
suspected depths within. It had an air of being an
interesting and friendly talk, almost their first long
talk together. Hitherto he had had a sort of fear
of Mrs. Walshingham, as of a person possibly sat-
irical, but she proved a soul of sense and sentiment,
and Kipps, for all of his abstraction, got on with her
unexpectedly well. They talked a little upon scenery
and the inevitable melancholy attaching to the old
ruins and the thought of vanished generations.

"Perhaps they jousted here," said Mrs. Walsh-
ingham.

"They was up to all sorts of things," said Kipps,
and then the two come round to Helen. She spoke of
her daughter's literary ambitions. "She will do some-
thing, I feel sure. You know, Mr. Kipps, it's a great
responsibility to a mother to feel her daughter is —
exceptionally clever."

"I dessay it is," said Kipps. "There's no mistake
about that."

She spoke, too, of her son — almost like Helen's
twin — alike, yet different. She made Kipps feel quite
fatherly. "They are so quick, so artistic," she said,
"so full of ideas. Almost they frighten me. One
feels they need opportunities — as other people need
air."

She spoke of Helen's writing. "Even when she
was quite a little dot she wrote verse."

[(Kipps, sensation.)

230 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"Her father had just the same tastes " Mrs.

Walshingham turned a little beam of half-pathetic
reminiscence on the past. "He was more artist than
business man. That was the trouble. . . . He
was misled by his partner, and when the crash came
everyone blamed him. . . . Well, it doesn't do
to dwell on horrid things — especially to-day. There
are bright days, Mr. Kipps, and dark days. And
mine have not always been bright."

Kipps presented a face of Coote-like sympathy.

She diverged to talk of flowers, and Kipps' mind
was filled with the picture of Helen bending down
towards him in the Keep.

They spread the tea under the trees before the little
inn, and at a certain moment Kipps became aware
that everyone in the party was simultaneously and
furtiv^ely glancing at him. There might have been a
certain tension had it not been first of all for Coote
and his tact, and afterwards for a number of wasps.
Coote was resolved to make this memorable day pass
off well, and displayed an almost boisterous sense of
fun. Then young Walshingham began talking of the
Roman remains below Lympne, intending to lead up
to the Overman. "These old Roman chaps," he said,
and then the wasps arrived. They killed three in the
jam alone.

Kipps killed wasps, as If it were in a dream, and
handed things to the wrong people, and maintained
a thin surface of ordinary intelligence with the utmost
difficulty. At times he became aware, aware with an

CH. Ill ENGAGED 231

extraordinary vividness, of Helen. Helen was care-
fully not looking at him and behaving with amazing
coolness and ease. But just for that one time there
was the faintest suggestion of pink beneath the ivory
of her cheeks.

Tacitly the others conceded to Kipps the right to
paddle back with Helen; he helped her into the canoe
and took his paddle, and, paddling slowly, dropped
behind the others. And now his inner self stirred
again. He said nothing to her. How could he ever
say anything to her again ? She spoke to him at rare
intervals about reflections and the flowers and the
trees, and he nodded in reply. But his mind moved
very slowly forward now from the point at which it
had fallen stunned in the Lympne Keep, moving for-
ward to the beginnings of realisation. As yet he did
not say even in the recesses of his heart that she was
his. But he perceived that the goddess had come
from her altar amazingly, and had taken him by the
hand!

The sky was a vast splendour, and then close to
them were the dark, protecting trees and the shining,
smooth, still water. He was an erect, black outline
to her; he plied his paddle with no unskilful gesture,
the water broke to snaky silver and glittered far be-
hind his strokes. Indeed, he did not seem bad to her.
Youth calls to youth the wide world through, and her
soul rose in triumph over his subjection. And behind
him was money and opportunity, freedom and Lon-
don, a great background of seductively Indistinct

232 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

hopes. To him her face was a warm dimness. In
truth, he could not see her eyes, but it seemed to his
love-witched brain he did and that they shone out at
him like dusky stars.

All the world that evening was no more than a
shadowy frame of darkling sky and water and drip-
ping bows about Helen. He seemed to see through
things with an extraordinary clearness; she was re-
vealed to him certainly, as the cause and essence of
it all.

He was indeed at his Heart's Desire. It was one
of those times when there seems to be no future, when
Time has stopped and we are at an end. Kipps, that
evening, could not have imagined a to-morrow, all
that his imagination had pointed towards was at-
tained. His mind stood still and took the moments
as they came.

§4

About nine that night Coote came around to Kipps'
new apartment in the Upper Sandgate Road — the
house on the Leas had been let furnished — and Kipps
made an effort toward realisation. He was discov-
ered sitting at the open window and without a lamp,
quite still. Coote was deeply moved, and he pressed
Kipps' palm and laid a knobby, white hand on his
shoulder and displayed the sort of tenderness becom-
ing in a crisis. Kipps was too moved that night, and
treated Coote like a very dear brother.

"She's splendid," said Coote, coming to it abruptly.

CH. Ill ENGAGED ;233

"Isn't she?" said Kipps.

"I couldn't help noticing her face," said Coote.
. . . "You know, my dear Kipps, that this is bet-
ter than a legacy."

"I don't deserve it," said Kipps.

"You can't say that."

"I don't. I can't 'ardly believe it. I can't believe
it at all. No!"

There followed an expressive stillness.

"It's wonderful," said Kipps. "It takes me like
that."

Coote made a faint blowing noise, and so again
they came for a time of silence.

"And it began — before your money?"

"When I was in 'er class," said Kipps, solemnly.

Coote, speaking out of a darkness which he was
illuminating strangely with efforts to strike a match,
said that it was beautiful. He could not have wished
Kipps a better fortune.

He lit a cigarette, and Kipps was moved to do the
same, with a sacramental expression. Presently
speech flowed more freely.

Coote began to praise Helen and her mother and
brother. He talked of when "it" might be, he pre-
sented the thing as concrete and credible. "It's a
county family, you know," he said. "She is connected,
you know, with the Beaupres family — you know Lord
Beaupres."

"No!" said Kipps, "reely!"

"Distantly, of course," said Coote. Still "

234 MR- COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

He smiled a smile that glimmered in the twilight.

"It's too much," said Kipps, overcome. "It's so
all like that."

Coote exhaled. For a time Kipps listened to
Helen's praises and matured a point of view.

"I say, Coote," he said. "What ought I to do

•J"
now :

"What do you mean?" said Coote.

"I mean about calling on 'er and all that."

He reflected. "Naturally, I want to do it all right."

"Of course," said Coote.

"It would be awful to go and do something — now
— all wrong."

Coote's cigarette glowed as he meditated. "You
must call, of course," he decided. "You'll have to
speak to Mrs, Walshingham."

"'Ow?" said Kipps.

"Tell her you mean to marry her daughter."

"I dessay she knows," said Kipps, with defensive
penetration.

Coote's head was visible, shaking Itself judici-
ously.

"Then there's the ring," said Kipps. "What 'ave
I to do about that?"

"What ring do you mean ?"

" 'Ngagement Ring. There isn't anything at all
about that in 'Manners and Rules of Good Society' —
not a word."

"Of course you must get something — tasteful.
Yes."

CH. Ill ENGAGED 235

"What sort of a ring?"

"Something nace. They'll show you in the shop."

"Of course. I 'spose I got to take it to 'er, eh?
Put it on her finger."

"Oh, no! Send it. Much better."

"Ah!" said Kipps, for the first time, with a note
of relief.

"Then, 'ow about this call — on Mrs. Walshing-
ham, I mean. 'Ow ought one to go?"

"Rather a ceremonial occasion," reflected Coote.

"Wadyer mean? Frock coat?"

"I think so," said Coote, with discrimination.

"Light trousers and all that?"

"Yes."

"Rose?"

"I think it might run to a buttonhole."

The curtain that hung over the future became less
opaque to the eyes of Kipps. To-morrow, and then
other days, became perceptible at least as existing.
Frock coat, silk hat and a rose ! With a certain
solemnity he contemplated himself in the process of
slow transformation into an English gentleman, Ar-
thur Cuyps, frock-coated on occasions of ceremony,
the familiar acquaintance of Lady Punnet, the recog-
nised v/ooer of a distant connection of the Earl of
Beaupres.

Something like awe at the magnitude of his own
fortune came upon him. He felt the world was open-
ing out like a magic flower in a transformation scene
at the touch of this wand of gold. And Helen,

236 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

nestling beautiful in the red heart of the flower. Only
ten weeks ago he had been no more than the shab-
biest of improvers and shamefully dismissed for dis-
sipation, the mere soil-burned seed, as it were, of
these glories. He resolved the engagement ring
should be of expressively excessive quality and ap-
pearance, in fact, the very best they had.

"Ought I to send 'er flowers?" he speculated.

"Not necessarily," said Coote. "Though, of course,
it's an attention." . . .

Kipps meditated on flowers.

"When you see her," said Coote, "you'll have to
ask her to name the day."

Kipps started. "That won't be just yet a bit,
will it?"

"Don't know any reason for delay."

"Oo, but — a year, say."

"Rather a long time," said Coote.

"Is it?" said Kipps, turning his head sharply.
♦'But "

There was quite a long pause.

"I say," he said, at last, and in an unaltered voice,
"you'll 'ave to 'elp me about the wedding."

"Only too happy," said Coote.

"Of course," said Kipps, "I didn't think "

He changed his line of thought. "Coote," he asked,
"wot's a 'state-eh-tate' ?"

"A 'tate-ah-tay' !" said Coote, improvingly, "is a
conversation alone together."

"Lor'!" said Kipps, "but I thought . It says

CH. Ill ENGAGED 237

strictly we oughtn't to enjoy a tater-tay, not sit to-
gether, walk together, ride together or meet during
any part of the day. That don't leave much time for
meeting, does it?"

"The books says that?" asked Coote.

"I jest learnt it by 'eart before you came. I
thought that was a bit rum, but I s'pose it's all
right."

"You won't find Miss Walshingham so strict as all
that," said Coote. "I think that's a bit extreme.
They'd only do that now in very strict old aristocratic
families. Besides, the Walshinghams are so modern
— advanced, you might say. I expect you'll get
plenty of chances of talking together."

"There's a tremendous lot to think about," said
Kipps, blowing a profound sigh. "D'you mean —
p'raps we might be married in a few months or so."

"You'll /i«i;^ to be," said Coote. "Why not?" . . .

Midnight found Kipps alone, looking a little tired
and turning over the leaves of the red-covered text-
book with a studious expression. He paused for a
moment on page 233, his eye caught by the words:

"FOR AN UNCLE OR AUNT BY MAR-
RIAGE the period is six weeks black, with jet trim-
mings."

"No," said Kipps, after a vigorous mental effort.
"That's not it." The pages rustled again. He
stopped and flattened out the little book decisively at
the beginning of the chapter on "Weddings."

He became pensive. He stared at the lamp wick.

238 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"I suppose I ought to go over and tell them," he said,

at last. 5j

85

Kipps called on Mrs. Walshlngham, attired in the
proper costume for eremonial Occasions in the Day.
He carried a silk hat, and he wore a deep-skirted
frock coat, his boots were patent leather and his trous-
ers dark grey. He had generous white cuffs with
gold links, and his grey gloves, one thumb in which
had burst when he put them on, he held loosely in
his hand. He carried a small umbrella rolled to an
exquisite tightness. A sense of singular correctness
pervaded his being and warred with the enormity of
the occasion for possession of his soul. Anon he
touched his silk cravat. The world smelt of his
rosebud.

He seated himself on a new re-covered chintz arm-
chair and stuck out the elbow of the arm that held his
hat.

"I know," said Mrs. Walshingham, "I know
everything," and helped him out most amazingly.
She deepened the impression he had already received
of her sense and refinement. She displayed an amount
of tenderness that touched him.

"This is a great thing," she said, "to a mother,"
and her hand rested for a moment on his impeccable
coat sleeve.

"A daughter, Arthur," she explained, "is so much
more than a son."

Marriage, she said, was a lottery, and without love

CH. Ill ENGAGED 239

and toleration there was much unhappiness. Her
life had not always been bright — there had been dark
days and bright days. She smiled rather sweetly.
"This is a bright one," she said.

She said very kind and flattering things to Kipps,
and she thanked him for his goodness to her son.
("That wasn't anything," said Kipps.) And then
she expanded upon the theme of her two children.
"Both so accomplished," she said, "so clever. I call
them my Twin Jewels."

She was repeating a remark that she had made at
Lympne, that she always said her children needed
opportunities, as other people needed air, when she
was abruptly arrested by the entry of Helen. They
hung on a pause, Helen perhaps surprised by Kipps'
weekday magnificence. Then she advanced with out-
stretched hand.

Both the young people were shy. "I jest called
'round," began Kipps, and became uncertain how to
end.

"Won't you have some tea?" asked Helen.

She walked to the window, looked out at the fa-
miliar outporter's barrow, turned, surveyed Kipps for
a moment ambiguously, said "1 will get some tea,"
and so departed again.

Mrs. Walshingham and Kipps looked at one an-
other and the lady smiled indulgently. "You two
young people mustn't be shy of each other," said
Mrs. Walshingham, which damaged Kipps con-
siderably.

240 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

She was explaining how sensitive Helen always
had been, even about quite little things, when the ser-
vant appeared with the tea things, and then Helen
followed, and taking up a secure position behind the
little banboo tea table, broke the ice with officious tea-
cup clattering. Then she introduced the topic of a
forthcoming open-air performance of "As You Like
It," and steered past the worst of the awkwardness.
They discussed stage illusion. "I mus' say," said
Kipps, "I don't quite like a play in a theayter. It
seems sort of unreal, some'ow."

"But most plays are written for the stage," said
Helen, looking at the sugar.

"I know," admitted Kipps.

They finished tea. "Well," said Kipps, and rose.

"You mustn't go yet," said Mrs. Walshingham,
rising and taking his hand. "I'm sure you two must
have heaps to say to each other," and so she escaped
towards the door.

§6

Among other projects that seemed almost equally
correct to Kipps at that exalted moment was one of
embracing Helen with ardour as soon as the door
closed behind her mother and one of headlong flight
through the open window. Then he remembered he
ought to hold the door open for Mrs. Walshingham,
and turned from that duty to find Helen still stand-
ing, beautifully inaccessible, behind the tea things.
He closed the door and advanced toward her with
his arms akimbo and his hands upon his coat skirts.

CH. Ill ENGAGED 241

Then, feeling angular, he moved his right hand to
his moustache. Anyhow, he was dressed all right.
Somewhere at the back of his mind, dim and mingled
with doubt and surprise, appeared the perception that
he felt now quite differently towards her, that some-
thing between them had been blown from Lympne
Keep to the four winds of heaven.

She regarded him with an eye of critical propri-
etorship.

"Mother has been making up to you," she said,
smiling slightly.

She added, "It was nice of you to come around to
see her."

They stood through a brief pause, as though each
had expected something different in the other and
was a little perplexed at its not being there. Kipps
found he was at the corner of the brown covered
table, and he picked up a little flexible book that lay
upon it to occupy his mind.

"I bought you a ring to-day," he said, bending the
book and speaking for the sake of saying something,
and then he was moved to genuine speech. "You
know," he said, "I can't 'ardly believe it."

Her face relaxed slightly again. "No?" she said,
and may have breathed, "Nor I."

"No," he went on. "It's as though everything
'ad changed. More even than when I got my money.
'Ere we are going to marry. It's like being someone
else. What I feel is "

He turned a flushed and earnest face to her. He

242 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

seemed to come alive to her with one natural gesture.
"I don't knozv things. I'm not good enough. I'm
not refined. The more you'll see of me the more
you'll find m.e out."

"But I'm going to help you."

"You'll 'ave to 'elp me a fearful lot."

She walked to the window, glanced out of it, made
up her mind, turned and came towards him, with her
hands clasped behind her back,

"All these things that trouble you are very little
things. If you don't mind — if you will let me tell you
things "

"I wish you would."

"Then I will."

"They're little things to you, but they aren't
to me."

"It all depends, if vou don't mind being told."

"By you?"

"I don't expect you to be told by strangers."

"Oo!" said Kipps, expressing much.

"You know, there are just a few little things. For
instance, you know, you are careless with your pro-
nunciation. . . . You don't mind my telling
you?"

"I like it," said Kipps.

"There's aitches."

"I know," said Kipps, and then, endorsingly, "I
been told. Fact is, I know a chap, a Nacter, he's told
me. He's told me, and he's going to give me a les-
so nor so."

OH. Ill ENGAGED 243

"I'm glad of that. It only requires a little
care,"

"Of course. On the stage they got to look out.
They take regular lessons."

"Of course," said Helen, a little absently.

"I dessay I shall soon get into it," said Kipps.

"And then there's dress," said Helen, taking up
her thread again.

Kipps became pink, but he remained respectfully
attentive.

"You don't mind?" she said.

"Oo, no."

"You mustn't be too — too dressy. It's possible to
be over-conventional, over-elaborate. It makes you
look like a shop — like a common, well-off person.
There's a sort of easiness that is better. A real gen-
tleman looks right, without looking as though he had
tried to be right."

"Jest as though 'e'd put on what came first?" said
the pupil, in a faded voice.

"Not exactly that, but a sort of ease."

Kipps nodded his head intelligently. In his heart
he was kicking his silk hat about the room in an
ecstasy of disappointment.

"And you must accustom yourself to be more at
your ease when you are with people," said Helen,
"You've only got to forget yourself a little and not
be anxious "

"I'll try," said Kipps, looking rather hard at the
teapot. "I'll do my best to try."

2^4 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"I know you will," she said, and laid a hand for an
instant upon his shoulder and withdrew it.

He did not perceive her caress. "One has to
learn," he said. His attention was distracted by the
strenuous efforts that were going on in the back of his
head to translate, "I say, didn't you ought to name
the day?" into easy as well as elegant English, a
struggle that was still undecided when the time came
for them to part.

He sat for a long time at the open window of his
sitting-room with an intent face, recapitulating that
interview. His eyes rested at last almost reproach-
fully on the silk hat beside him. '"Ow is one to
know?" he asked. His attention was caught by a
rubbed place in the nap, and, still thoughtful, he
rolled up his handkerchief skilfully into a soft ball
and began to smooth this down.

His expression changed slowly.

'"Ow the Juice is one to know?" he said, putting
down the hat with some emphasis.

He rose up, went across the room to the sideboard,
and, standing there, opened and began to read "Man-
ners and Rules."

CHAPTER IV

THE BICYCLE MANUFACTURER

So Klpps embarked upon his engagement, steeled
himself to the high enterprise of marrying above his
breeding. The next morning found him dressing
with a certain quiet severity of movement, and it
seemed to his landlady's housemaid that he was
unusually dignified at breakfast. He meditated pro-
foundly over his kipper and his kidney and bacon.
He was going to New Romney to tell the old people
what had happened and where he stood. And the
love of Helen had also given him courage to do what
Buggins had once suggested to him as a thing he
would do were he in Kipps' place, and that was to
hire a motor car for the afternoon. He had an early
cold lunch, and then, with an air of quiet resolution,
assumed a cap and coat he had purchased to this end,
and thus equipped strolled around, blowing slightly,
to the motor shop. The transaction was unexpectedly
easy, and within the hour Kipps, spectacled and
wrapped about, was tootling through Dymchurch.

They came to a stop smartly and neatly outside the
245

246 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

little toy shop. "Make that thing 'oot a bit, will
you," said Kipps. "Yes, that's it." "Whup," said
the motor car. "Whurrup !"

Both his Aunt and Uncle came out on the pave-
ment. "Why, it's Artie," cried his Aunt, and Kipps
had a moment of triumph.

He descended to hand claspings, removed wraps
and spectacles, and the motor driver retired to take
"an hour off." Old Kipps surveyed the machinery
and disconcerted Kipps for a moment by asking him
in a knowing tone what they asked him for a thing
like that. The two men stood inspecting the machine
and impressing the neighbours for a time, and then
they strolled through the shop into the little parlour
for a drink.

"They ain't settled," old Kipps had said to the
neighbours. "They ain't got no further than experi-
ments. There's a bit of take-in about each. You
take my advice and wait, me boy, even if it's a year
or two, before you buy one for your own use."

(Though Kipps had said nothing of doing any-
thing of the sort.)

"'Ow d'you like that whiskey I sent?" asked Kipps,
dodging the old familiar bunch of children's pails.

Old Kipps became tactful. "It's a very good whis-
key, my boy," said old Kipps. "I 'aven't the slight-
est doubt it's a very good whiskey and cost you a tidy
price. But — dashed if it soots me! They put this
here Foozle He in it, my boy, and it ketches me jest
'ere." He indicated his centre of figure. "Gives

CH. IV BICYCLE MANUFACTURER 247

me the heartburn," he said, and shook his head rather
sadly.

"It's a very good whiskey," said Kipps. "It's
what the actor manager chaps drink in London, I 'ap-
pen to know."

"I dessay they do, my boy," said old Kipps, "but
then they've 'ad their livers burnt out, and I 'aven't.
They ain't dellicat like me. My stummik always 'as
been extrey dellicat. Sometimes it's almost been as
though nothing would lay on it. But that's in pass-
ing. I liked those segars. You can send me some of
them segars. . . ."

You cannot lead a conversation straight from the
gastric consequences of Foozle He to Love, and so
Kipps, after a friendly inspection of a rare old en-
graving after Morland (perfect except for a hole
kicked through the centre) that his Uncle had re-
cently purchased by private haggle, came to the topic
of the old people's removal.

At the outset of Kipps' great fortunes there had
been much talk of some permanent provision for
them. It had been conceded they were to be provided
for comfortably, and the phrase "retire from busi-
ness" had been very much in the air. Kipps had pic-
tured an ideal cottage, with a creeper always in exub-
erant flower about the door, where the sun shone for-
ever and the wind never blew and a perpetual wel-
come hovered in the doorway. It was an agreeable
dream, but when it came to the point of deciding upon
this particular cottage or that, and on this particular

248 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

house or that, Kipps was surprised by an unexpected
clinging to the little home, which he had always
understood to be the worst of all possible houses.

*'We don't want to move in a 'urry," said Mrs.
Kipps.

"When we want to move, we want to move for
life. I've had enough moving about in my time,"
said old Kipps.

"We can do here a bit more, now we done here so
long," said Mrs. Kipps.

"You lemme look about a bit fust," said old Kipps.

And in looking about old Kipps found perhaps a
finer joy than any mere possession could have given.
He would shut his shop more or less effectually
against the intrusion of customers, and toddle abroad
seeking new matter for his dream ; no house was too
small and none too large for his knowing enquiries.
Occupied houses took his fancy more than vacancies,
and he would remark, "You won't be a livin' 'ere for-
ever, even if you think you will," when irate house-
holders protested against the unsolicited examination
of their more intimate premises.

Remarkable difficulties arose of a totally unex-
pected sort.

"If we 'ave a larger 'ouse," said Mrs. Kipps with
sudden bitterness, "we shall want a servant, and I
don't want no gells in the place larfin' at me, snig-
gerin' and larfin' and prancin' and trapesin', lardy da !
If we 'ave a smaller 'ouse, there won't be room to
swing a cat."

CH. IV BICYCLE MANUFACTURER 249

Room to swing a cat it seemed was absolutely
essential. It was an infrequent but indispensable
operation.

"When we do move," said old Kipps, "if we could

get a bit of shootin' , I don't want to sell off all

this here stock for nothin'. It's took years to 'cumu-
late. I put a ticket in the winder sayin' 'sellin' orf,'
but it 'asn't brought nothing like a roosh. One of
these 'ere dratted visitors pretendin' to want an air
gun, was all we 'ad in yesterday. Jest an excuse for
spyin' round and then go away and larf at you. No-
thanky to everything, it didn't matter what.
That's 'ow / look at it, Artie."

They pursued meandering fancies about the topic
of their future settlement for a space and Kipps be-
came more and more hopeless of any proper conver-
sational opening that would lead to his great an-
nouncement, and more and more uncertain how such
an opening should be taken. Once indeed old Kipps,
anxious to get away from this dangerous subject of
removals, began : "And what are you a-doin' of in
Folkestone? I shall have to come over and see you
one of these days," but before Kipps could get in
upon that, his Uncle had passed into a general ex-
position of the proper treatment of landladies and
their humbugging, cheating ways, and so the oppor-
tunity vanished. It seemed to Kipps the only thing
to do was to go out into the town for a stroll, compose
an effectual opening at leisure, and then come back
and discharge it at them in its consecutive complete-

250 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

ness. And even out of doors and alone, he found his
mind distracted by irrelevant thoughts.

§2

His steps led him out of the High Street towards
the church, and he leant for a time over the gate that
had once been the winning post of his race with Ann
Pornick, and presently found himself in a sitting posi-
tion on the top rail. He had to get things smooth
again, he knew; his mind was like a mirror of water
after a breeze. The image of Helen and his great
future was broken and mingled into fragmentary re-
flections of remoter things, of the good name of Old
Methusaleh Three Stars, of long dormant memories
the High Street saw fit, by some trick of light and
atmosphere, to arouse that afternoon.

Abruptly a fine, full voice from under his elbow
shouted, "What— O Art!" and, behold, Sid Pornick
was back in his world, leaning over the gate beside
him, and holding out a friendly hand.

He was oddly changed and yet oddly like the Sid
that Kipps had known. He had the old broad face
and mouth, abundantly freckled, the same short nose,
and the same blunt chin, the same odd suggestion of
his sister Ann without a touch of her beauty; but he
had quite a new voice, loud and a little hard, and his
upper lip carried a stiff and very fair moustache.

Kipps shook hands. "I was jest thinking of you,
Sid," he said, "jest this very moment and wondering

CH.iv BICYCLE MANUFACTURER 251

if ever I should see you again, ever. And 'ere you
are!"

"One lilces a look 'round at times," said Sid. "How
are you, old chap?"

"All right," said Kipps. "I just been lef "

"You aren't changed much," interrupted Sid.

"Ent I?" said Kipps, foiled.

"I knew your back directly I came 'round the cor-
ner. Spite of that 'at you got on. Hang it, I said,
that's Art Kipps or the devil. And so it was."

Kipps made a movement of his neck as if he would
look at his back and judge. Then he looked Sid in
the face. "You got a moustache, Sid," he said.

"I s'pose you're having your holidays?" said Sid.

"Well, partly. But I just been lef "

"/'w taking a bit of a holiday," Sid went on. "But
the fact is, I have to give myself holidays nowadays.
I've set up for myself."

"Not down here?"

"No fear ! I'm not a turnip. I've started in Ham-
mersmith, manufacturing." Sid spoke offhand as
though there was no such thing as pride.

"Not drapery?"

"No fear! Engineer. Manufacture bicycles." He
clapped his hand to his breast pocket and produced a
number of pink handbills. He handed one to Kipps
and prevented him reading it by explanations and
explanatory dabs of a pointing finger. "That's our
make, my make to be exact. The Red Flag, see? — I
got a transfer with my name — Pantocrat tyres, eight

252 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

pounds — yes, there — Clinchers ten, Dunlop's eleven,
Ladies' one pound more — that's the lady's. Best
machine at a democratic price in London. No guineas
and no discounts — honest trade. I build 'em — to or-
der. I've built," he reflected, looking away seaward
— ^"seventeen. Counting orders in 'and.
Come down to look at the old place a bit. Mother
likes it at times."

"Thought you'd all gone away "

"What! after my father's death? No! My moth-
er's come back, and she's living at Muggett's cot-
tages. The sea air suits 'er. She likes the old place
better than Hammersmith . . and I can afford
it. Got an old crony or so here. . . Gossip . .
have tea. . . S'pose you ain't married, Kipps?"

Kipps shook his head, "I " he began.

"/ am," said Sid. "Married these two years and
got a nipper. Proper little chap."

Kipps got his word in at last. "I got engaged day
before yesterday," he said.

"Ah!" said Sid airily. "That's all right. Who's
the fortunate lady?"

Kipps tried to speak in an offhand way. He stuck
his hands in his pockets as he spoke. "She's a solici-
tor's daughter," he said, "in Folkstone. Rather'r
nice set. County family. Related to the Earl of
Beaupres "

"Steady on!" cried Sid.

"You see, I've 'ad a bit of luck, Sid. Been lef
money."

CH. IV BICYCLE MANUFACTURER 253

Sid's eye travelled instinctively to mark Kipps' gar-
ments. "How much?" he asked.

" 'Bout twelve 'undred a year," said Kipps, more
offhandedly than ever.

"Lord!" said Sid, with a note of positive dismay,
and stepped back a pace or two.

"My granfaver it was," said Kipps, trying hard to
be calm and simple. " 'Ardly knew I 'ad a granfaver.
And then — bang ! When o' Bean, the solicitor, told
me of it, you could 'ave knocked me down "

" 'Ow much?" demanded Sid, with a sharp note in
his voice.

"Twelve 'undred pound a year — 'proximately, that
is. . . ."

Sid's attempt at genial unenvious congratulation
did not last a minute. He shook hands with an un-
real heartiness and said he was jolly glad. "It's a
blooming stroke of Luck," he said.

"It's a bloomin' stroke of Luck," he repeated;
"that's what it is," with the smile fading from his
face. "Of course, better you 'ave it than me, o' chap.
So I don't envy you, anyhow. / couldn't keep it, if I
did 'ave it."

" 'Ow's that?" said Kipps, a little hipped by Sid's
patent chagrin.

"I'm a Socialist, you see," said Sid. "I don't 'old
with Wealth, What is Wealth? Labour robbed out
of the poor. At most it's only yours in Trust. Least-
ways, that 'ow / should take it." He reflected. "The
Present distribution of Wealth," he said and stopped.

254 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Then he let himself go, with unmasked bitterness.
"It's no sense at all. It's jest damn foolishness.
Who's going to work and care in a muddle like this?
Here first you do — something anyhow — of the
world's work, and it pays you hardly anything, and
then it invites you to do nothing, nothing whatever,
and pays you twelve hundred pounds a year. Who's
going to respect laws and customs when they come to
damn silliness like that?" He repeated, "Twelve
hundred pounds a year!"

At the sight of Kipps' face he relented slightly,

"It's not you I'm thinking of, o' man; it's the sys-
tem. Better you than most people. Still "

He laid both hands on the gate and repeated to
himself, "Twelve 'undred a year. . . . Gee-
Whizz, Kipps ! You'll be a swell !"

"I shan't," said Kipps with imperfect conviction.
"No fear."

"You can't 'ave money like that and not swell out.
You'll soon be too big to speak to — 'ow do they put
it? — a mere mechanic like me."

"No fear, Siddee," said Kipps with conviction. "I
ain't that sort."

"Ah!" said Sid, with a sort of unwilling scepti-
cism, "money'll be too much for you. Besides —
you're caught by a swell already."

"'Owd'youmean?"

"That girl you're going to marry. Masterman
says "

"Oo's Masterman?"

CH.iv BICYCLE MANUFACTURER 255

"Rare good chap I know — takes my first floor
front room. Masterson says It's always the wife
pitches the key. Always. There's no social differ-
ences— till women come In."

"Ah!" said KIpps profoundly. "You don't know."

Sid shook his head. "Fancy!" he reflected, "Art
KIpps! . . . Twelve 'Undred a Year!"

KIpps tried to bridge that opening gulf. "Remem-
ber the Hurons, Sid?"

"Rather," said Sid.

"Remember that wreck?"

"I can smell It now — sort of sour smell."

KIpps was silent for a moment with reminiscent
eyes on Sid's still troubled face.

"Isay, Sid, 'ow'sAnn?"

"She's all right," said Sid.

"Where Is she now?"

"In a place . . . Ashford."

"Oh!"

Sid's face had become a shade sulkier than before.

"The fact is," he said, "we don't get on very well
together. / don't hold with service. We're common
people, I suppose, but I don't like It. I don't see why
a sister of mine should wait at other people's tables.
No. Not even If they got Twelve 'Undred a Year."

KIpps tried to change the point of application.
"Remember 'ow you came out once when we were
racing here? . . . She didn't run bad for a
girl."

And his own words raised an image brighter than

256 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

he could have supposed, so bright it seemed to
breathe before him and did not fade altogether, even
when he was back in Folkestone an hour or so later.

But Sid was not to be deflected from that other
rankling theme by any reminiscences of Ann.

"I wonder what you will do with all that money,"
he speculated. "I wonder if you will do any good at
all. I wonder what you could do. You should hear
Masterman. He'd tell you things. Suppose it came
to me, what should I do ? It's no good giving it back
to the state as things are. Start an Owenite profit-
sharing factory perhaps. Or a new Socialist paper.
We want a new Socialist paper."

He tried to drown his personal chagrin in elaborate
exemplary suggestions.

§3

"I must be gettin' on to my motor," said Kipps at
last, having to a large extent heard him out.

''What! Got a motor?"

"No!" said Kipps apologetically. "Only jobbed
for the day."

'"Owmuch?"

"Five pounds."

"Keep five families for a week! Good Lord!"
That seemed to crown Sid's disgust.

Yet drawn by a sort of fascination he came with
Kipps and assisted at the mounting of the motor. He

CH. IV BICYCLE MANUFACTURER 257

was pleased to note it was not the most modem of
motors, but that was the only grain of comfort. Kipps
mounted at once, after one violent agitation of the
little shop-door to set the bell a-j ingle and warn his
Uncle and Aunt. Sid assisted with the great furlined
overcoat and examined the spectacles.

"Good-bye, o' chap!" said Kipps.

"Good-bye, o' chap !" said Sid.

The old people came out to say good-bye.

Old Kipps was radiant with triumph, " 'Pon my
Sammy, Artie ! I'm a goo' mind to come with you,"
he shouted, and then, "I got something you might
take with you !"

He dodged back into the shop and returned with
the perforated engraving after Morland.

"You stick to this, my boy," he said. "You get it
repaired by someone who knows. It's the most vally-
ble thing I got you so far, you take my word."

"Warrup !" said the motor, and tuff, tuff, tuff, and
backed and snorted while old Kipps danced about on
the pavement as if foreseeing complex catastrophes,
and told the driver, "That's all right."

He waved his stout stick to his receding nephew.
Then he turned to Sid. "Now, if you could make
something like that, young Pornick, you might blow
a bit!"

"I'll make a doocid sight better than that before I
done," said Sid, hands deep in his pockets.

"Not you," said old Kipps,

The motor set up a prolonged sobbing moan and

258 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

vanished around the corner. Sid stood motionless for
a space, unheeding some further remark from old
Kipps. The young mechanic had just discovered that
to have manufactured seventeen bicycles, including
orders in hand, is not so big a thing as he had sup-
posed, and such discoveries try one's manhood. . . .

"Oh well !" said Sid at last, and turned his face to-
wards his mother's cottage.

She had got a hot teacake for him, and she was a
little hurt that he was dark and preoccupied as he
consumed it. He had always been such a boy for
teacake, and then when one went out specially and got
him one !

He did not tell her — he did not tell anyone — he
had seen young Kipps. He did not want to talk
about Kipps for a bit to anyone at all.

CHAPTER V

THE PUPIL LOVER
§1

When Kipps came to reflect upon his afternoon's
work he had his first Inkling of certain comprehen-
sive incompatibilities lying about the course of true
love in his particular case. He had felt without
understanding the incongruity between the announce-
ment he had failed to make and the circle of ideas of
his Aunt and Uncle. It was this rather than the want
of a specific Intention that had silenced him, the per-
ception that when he travelled from Folkestone to
New Romney he travelled from an atmosphere where
his engagement to Helen was sane and excellent to an
atmosphere where It was only to be regarded with
incredulous suspicion. Coupled and associated with
this jar was his sense of the altered behaviour of Sid
Pornick, the evident shock to that ancient alliance
caused by the fact of his enrichment, the touch of hos-
tility in his "You'll soon be swelled too big to speak to
a poor mechanic like me." Kipps was unprepared for
the unpleasant truth; that the path of social advance-
ment is and must be strewn with broken friendships.

259

26o MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

This first protrusion of that fact caused a painful con-
fusion in his mind. It was speedily to protrude in a
far more serious fashion in relation to the "hands"
from the Emporium, and Chitterlow.

From the day at Lympne Castle his relations with
Helen had entered upon a new footing. He had
prayed for Helen as good souls pray for Heaven,
with as little understanding of what it was he prayed
for. And now that period of standing humbly in the
shadows before the shrine was over, and the God-
dess, her veil of mystery flung aside, had come down
to him and taken hold of him, a good, strong, firm
hold, and walked by his side. . . . She liked
him. What was singular was that very soon she had
kissed him thrice, whimsically upon the brow, and he
had never kissed her at all. He could not analyse his
feelings, only he knew the world was wonderfully
changed about them, but the truth was that, though
he still worshipped and feared her, though his pride
in his engagement was ridiculously vast, he loved her
now no more. That subtle something woven of the
most delicate strands of self-love and tenderness and
desire, had vanished imperceptibly; and was gone
now for ever. But that she did not suspect in him,
nor as a matter of fact did he.

She took him in hand in perfect good faith. She
told him things about his accent, she told him things
about his bearing, about his costume and his way of
looking at things. She thrust the blade of her intelli-
gence into the tenderest corners of Kipps' secret van-

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 261

ity, she slashed his most intimate pride to bleeding
tatters. He sought very diligently to anticipate some
at least of these informing thrusts by making great
use of Coote. But the unanticipated made a brave
number.

She found his simple willingness a very lovable
thing.

Indeed she liked him more and more. There was
a touch of motherliness in her feelings towards him.
But his upbringing and his associations had been, she
diagnosed, "awful." At New Romney she glanced
but little; that was remote. But in her inventory —
she went over him as one might go over a newly taken
house, with impartial thoroughness — she discovered
more proximate influences, surprising intimations of
nocturnal "sing-songs" — she pictured It as almost
shocking that Kipps should sing to the banjo — much
low-grade wisdom treasured from a person called
Buggins — "Who is Buggins?" said Helen — vague
figures of indisputable vulgarity. Pierce and Carshot,
and more particularly, a very terrible social phenome-
non, Chitterlow.

Chitterlow blazed upon them with unheralded op-
pressive brilliance the first time they were abroad
together.

They were going along the front of the Leas to see
a school play in Sandgate — at the last moment Mrs.
Walshingham had been unable to come with them —
when Chitterlow loomed up into the new world. He
was wearing the suit of striped flannel and the straw

262 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

hat that had followed Kipps' payment in advance for
his course in elocution, his hands were deep in his
side pockets and animated the corners of his jacket,
and his attentive gaze at the passing loungers, the
faint smile under his boldly drawn nose, showed him
engaged in studying character — no doubt for some
forthcoming play.

"What HO!" said he, at the sight of Kipps, and
swept off the straw hat with so ample a clutch of his
great, flat hand that it suggested to Helen's startled
mind a conjurer about to palm a half-penny.

" 'Ello, Chitt'low," said Kipps a little awkwardly
and not saluting.

Chitterlow hesitated. "Half a mo', my boy," he
said, and arrested Kipps by extending a large hand
over his chest. "Excuse me, my dear," he said, bow-
ing like his Russian count by way of apology to Helen
and with a smile that would have killed at a hundred
yards. He affected a semi-confidential grouping of
himself and Kipps while Helen stood in white amaze-
ment.

"About that play," he said.

" 'Ow about it?" asked Kipps, acutely aware of
Helen.

"It's all right," said Chitterlow. "There's a strong
smell of syndicate in the air, I may tell you — Strong."

"That's aw right,'' said Kipps.

"You needn't tell everybody," said Chitterlow with
a transitory, confidential hand to his mouth, which
pointed the application of the "everybody" just a

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 263

trifle too strongly. "But I think it's coming off. How-
ever . I mustn't detain you now. So long.

You'll come 'round, eh ?"

"Right you are," said Kipps.

"To-night?"

"At eight."

And then, and more in the manner of a Russian
prince than any common count, Chitterlow bowed and
withdrew. Just for a moment he allowed a conquer-
ing eye to challenge Helen's and noted her for a girl
of quality. . . .

There was a silence between our lovers for a space.

"That," said Kipps with an allusive movement of
the head, "was Chitterlow."

"Is he — a friend of yours?"

"In a way. . . . You see — I met 'im. Least-
ways 'e met me. Run into me with a bicycle, 'e did,
and so we got talking together."

He tried to appear at his ease. The young lady
scrutinised his profile.

"What is he?"

" 'E's a Nacter chap," said Kipps. "Leastways *e
writes plays."

"And sells them?"

"Partly."

"Whom to?"

"Different people. Shares he sells. . . . It's
all right, reely — I meant to tell you about him be-
fore."

Helen looked over her shoulder to catch a view of

264 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Chitterlow's retreating aspect. It did not compel her
complete confidence.

She turned to her lover and said in a tone of quiet
authority, "You must tell me all about Chitterlow.
Now."

The explanation began.

The School Play came almost as a relief to Kipps.
In the flusterment of going in he could almost forget
for a time his Laocoon struggle to explain, and in the
intervals he did his best to keep forgetting. But
Helen, with a gentle insistence, resumed the explana-
tion of Chitterlow as they returned towards Folke-
stone.

Chitterlow was confoundedly difficult to explain.
You could hardly imagine !

There was an almost motherly anxiety in Helen's
manner, blended with the resolution of a schoolmis-
tress to get to the bottom of the affair. Kipps' ears
were soon quite brightly red.

"Have you seen one of his plays?"

" 'E's tole me about one."

"But on the stage."

"No. He 'asn't 'ad any on the stage yet. That's
all coming. . . ."

"Promise me," she said in conclusion, "you won't
do anything without consulting me."

And of course Kipps promised. "Oo — no!"

They went on their way in silence.

"One can't know everybody," said Helen in gen-
eral.

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 265

"Of course," said Kipps; "in a sort of way it was
him that helped me to my money." And he indicated
in a confused manner the story of the advertisement.
"I don't like to drop 'im all at once," he added.

Helen was silent for a space, and when she spoke
she went off at a tangent. "We shall live in London —
soon," she remarked. "It's only while we are here."

It was the first intimation she gave him of their
post-nuptial prospects.

"We shall have a nice little flat somewhere, not too
far west, and there we shall build up a circle of our
own."

§2

All that declining summer Kipps was the pupil
lover. He made an extraordinarily open secret of his
desire for self-improvement; indeed Helen had to
hint once or twice that his modest frankness was ex-
cessive, and all this new circle of friends did, each
after his or her manner, everything that was possible
to supplement Helen's efforts and help him to ease
and skill in the more cultivated circles to which he had
come. Coote was still the chief teacher, the tutor —
there are so many little difl'iculties that a man may
take to another man that he would not care to pro-
pound to the woman he loves — but th^y were all, so
to speak, upon the staff. Even the freckled girl said
to him once in a pleasant way, "You mustn't say

266 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"centre temps," you must say "contraytom," when he
borrowed that expression from ^'Manners and
Rules," and she tried at his own suggestion to give
him clear ideas upon the subject of "as" and "has."
A certain confusion between these words was becom-
ing evident, the first fruits of a lesson from Chitter-
low on the aspirate. Hitherto he had discarded that
dangerous letter almost altogether, but now he would
pull up at words beginning with "h" and draw a saw-
ing breath — rather like a startled kitten — and then
aspirate with vigour.

Said Kipps one day, ^^As 'e? — I should say, ah —
Has 'e? Ye know I got a lot of difficulty over them
two words, which is which?"

"Well, 'as' is a conjunction and 'has' is a verb."

"I know," said Kipps, "but when is 'has' a con-
junction and when is 'as' a verb?"

"Well," said the freckled girl, prepj^ring to be
very lucid. "It's has when it means one has, meaning
having, but if it isn't it's as. As for instance one says
'e — 1 mean he — He has. But one says 'as he has.' "

"I see," said Kipps. "So I ought to say 'as 'e?' "

"No, if you are asking a question you say has 'e —
I mean he — 'as he?" She blushed quite brightly, but
still clung to her air of lucidity.

"I see," said Kipps. He was about to say some-
thing further, but he desisted. "I got it much clearer
now. Has 'e? . Has 'e as. Yes."

"If you remember about having."
*'Oo I will," said Kipps.

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 267

Miss Coote specialised in Kipps' artistic develop-
ment. She had early found an opinion that he had
considerable artistic sensibility, his remarks on her
work had struck her as decidedly intelligent, and
whenever he called around to see them she would
show him some work of art, now an illustrated book,
now perhaps a colour print of a Botticelli, now the
Hundred Best Paintings, now "Academy Pictures,"
now a German art handbook and now some magazine
of furniture and design. "I know you like these
things," she used to say, and Kipps said, "Oo I doJ'
He soon acquired a little armoury of appreciative
sayings. When presently the Walshinghams took him
up to the Arts and Crafts, his deportment was intelli-
gent in the extreme. For a time he kept a wary silence
and suddenly pitched upon a colour print. "That's
rather nace," he said to Mrs. Walshingham. "That
Jill' thing. There." He always said things like that
by preference to the mother rather than the daughter
unless he was perfectly sure.

He quite took to Mrs. Walshingham. He was im-
pressed by her conspicuous tact and refinement; it
seemed to him that the ladylike could go no further.
She was always dressed with a delicate fussiness that
was never disarranged and even a sort of faded qual-
ity about her hair and face and bearing and emotions
contributed to her effect. Kipps was not a big man,
and commonly he did not feel a big man, but with
Mrs. Walshingham he always felt enormous and dis-
tended, as though he was a navvy who had taken

268 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

some disagreeable poison which puffed him up inside
his skin as a preliminary to bursting. He felt, too, as
though he had been rolled in clay and his hair dressed
with gum. And he felt that his voice was strident
and his accent like somebody swinging a crowded
pig's pail In a free and careless manner. All this
increased and enforced his respect for her. Her hand,
which flitted often and again to his hand and arm,
was singularly well shaped and cool. "Arthur," she
called him from the very beginning.

She did not so much positively teach and tell him
as tactfully guide and Infect him. Her conversation
was not so much didactic as exemplary. She would
say, "I do like people to do" so and so. She would
tell him anecdotes of nice things done, of gentlemanly
feats of graceful consideration ; she would record her
neat observations of people In trains and omnibuses;
how, for example, a man had passed her change to
the conductor, "quite a common man he looked," but
he had lifted his hat. She stamped KIpps so deeply
with the hat-raising habit that he would uncover if he
found himself In the same railway ticket office with a
lady had to stand ceremoniously until the difficulties
of change drove him to an apologetic provisional
oblique resumption of his headgear. . . . And
robbing these things of any air of personal applica-
tion, she threw about them an abundant talk about
her two children — she called them her Twin Jewels
quite frequently — about their gifts, their tempera-
ments, their ambition, their need of opportunity.

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 269

They needed opportunity, she would say, as other
people needed air.

In his conversations with her Kipps always as-
sumed, and she seemed to assume, that she was to join
that home in London Helen foreshadowed, but he
was surprised one day to gather that this was not to
be the case. "It wouldn't do," said Helen, with de-
cision. "We vvant to make a circle of our own."

"But won't she be a bit lonely down here?" asked
Kipps.

"There's the Waces, and Mrs. Prebble and Mrs.
Bindon Botting and — lots of people she knows." And
Helen dismissed this possibility.

Young Walshingham's share in the educational
syndicate was smaller. But he shone out when they
went to London on that Arts and Crafts expedition.
Then this rising man of affafrs showed Kipps how to
buy the more theatrical weeklies for consumption in
the train, how to buy and what to buy in the way of
cigarettes with gold tips and shilling cigars, and how
to order hock for lunch and sparkling Moselle for
dinner, how to calculate the fare of a hansom cab —
penny a minute while he goes — how to look intelli-
gently at an hotel tape, and how to sit still in a train
like a thoughtful man instead of talking like a fool
and giving yourself away. And he, too, would glance
at the good time coming when they were to be in Lon-
don for good and all.

That prospect expanded and developed particulars.
It presently took up a large part of Helen's conversa-

270 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

tlon. Her conversations with Kipps were never of a
grossly sentimental sort; there was a shyness of
speech in that matter with both of them, but these
new adumbrations were at least as interesting and not
so directly disagreeable as the clear-cut intimations of
personal defect that for a time had so greatly chas-
tened Kipps' delight in her presence. The future pre-
sented itself with an almost perfect frankness as a
joint campaign of Mrs. Walshingham's Twin Jewels
upon the Great World, with Kipps in the capacity of
baggage and supply. They would still be dreadfully
poor, of course — this amazed Kipps, but he said noth-
ing— until "Brudderkins" began to succeed, but if
they were clever and lucky they might do a great deal.
When Helen spoke of London a brooding look, as
of one who contemplates a distant country, came into
her eyes. Already it seemed they had the nucleus of
a set. Brudderkins was a member of the Theatrical
Judges, an excellent and influential little club of jour-
nalists and literary people, and he knew Shimer and
Stargate and Whiffle, of the "Red Dragon," and be-
sides these were the Revels. They knew the Revels
quite well. Sidney Revel before his rapid rise to
prominence as a writer of epigrammatic essays that
were quite above the ordinary public, had been an
assistant master at one of the best Folkestone schools,
Brudderkins had brought him home to tea several
times, and it was he had first suggested Helen should
try and write. "It's perfectly easy," Sidney had said.
He had been writing occasional things for the evening

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 27 1

papers, and for the weekly reviews even at that time.
Then he had gone up to London and had almost un-
avoidedly become a dramatic critic. Those brilliant
essays had followed, and then "Red Hearts a-Beat-
ing," the romance that had made him. It was a tale
of spirited adventure, full of youth and beauty and
naive passion and generous devotion, bold, as the
Bookman said, and frank in places, but never in the
slightest degree morbid. He had met and married
an American widow with quite a lot of money, and
they had made a very distinct place for themselves,
Kipps learnt, in the literary and artistic society of
London. Helen seemed to dwell on the Revels a
great deal ; it was her exemplary story, and when she
spoke of Sidney — she often called him Sidney — she
would become thoughtful. She spoke most of him
naturally because she had still to meet Mrs. Revel.
. . . Certainly they would be in the world in no
time, even if the distant connection with the Beaupres
family came to nothing.

Kipps gathered that with his marriage and the
movemejit to London they were to undergo that sub-
tle change of name Coote had first adumbrated. They
were to become "Cuyps," Mr. and Mrs. Cuyps. Or,
was it Cuyp ?

"It'll be rum at first," said Kipps. "I dessay I
shall soon get into it."

So in their several ways they all contributed to en-
large and refine and exercise the intelligence of Kipps.
And behind all these other influences, and, as it were,

272 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

presiding over and correcting these influences, was
Kipps' nearest friend, Coote, a sort of master of the
ceremonies. You figure his face, blowing slightly with
solicitude, his slate coloured, projecting but not un-
kindly eye intent upon our hero. The thing he thought
was going off admirably. He studied Kipps' char-
acter immensely. He would discuss him with his sis-
ter, with Mrs. Walshingham, with the freckled girl,
with anyone who would stand it. "He is an interest-
ing character," he would say, "likable — a sort of
gentleman by instinct. He takes to all these things.
He improves every day. He'll soon get Sang Froid.
We took him up just in time. He wants now —

well . Next year, perhaps, if there is a good

Extension Literature course, he might go in for it.
He wants to go in for something like that."

"He's going in for his bicycle now," said Mrs.
Walshingham.

"That's all right for summer," said Coote, "but he
wants to go in for some serious, intellectual interest,
something to take him out of himself a little more.
Savoir Faire and self-forgetfulness is more than half
the secret of Sang Froid."

The world as Coote presented it was in part an
endorsement, in part an amplification and in part a
rectification of the world of Kipps, the world that
derived from the old couple in New Romney and had

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 273

been developed in the Emporium ; the world, in fact,
of common British life. There was the same sub-
tle sense of social graduation that had moved Mrs.
Kipps to prohibit intercourse with labourers' children
and the same dread of anything "common" that had
kept the personal quality of Mr. Shalford's establish-
ment so high. But now a certain disagreeable doubt
about Kipps' own position was removed and he stood
with Coote inside the sphere of gentlemen assured.
Within the sphere of gentlemen there are distinctions
of rank indeed, but none of class; there are the Big
People and the modest, refined, gentlemanly little
people like Coote, who may even dabble in the profes-
sions and counterless trades ; there are lords and mag-
nificences, and there are gentle folk who have to man-
age, but they can all call on one another, they pre-
serve a general equality of deportment throughout,
they constitute that great state within the state, So-
ciety, or at any rate they make believe they do.

"But reely," said the Pupil, "not what you call
being in Society?"

"Yes," said Coote. "Of course, down here one
doesn't see much of it, but there's local society. It
has the same rules."

"Calling and all that?"

"Precisely," said Coote.

Kipps thought, whistled a bar, and suddenly
broached a question of conscience. "I often wonder,"
he said, "whether I oughtn't to dress for dinner —
when I'm alone 'ere."

274 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Coote protruded his lips and reflected. "Not full
dress," he adjudicated; "that would be a little exces-
sive. But you should change, you know. Put on a
mess jacket and that sort of thing — easy dress. That
is what / should do, certainly, if I wasn't in harness —
and poor."

He coughed modestly and patted his hair behind.

And after that the washing bill of Kipps quad-
rupled, and he was to be seen at times by the band-
stand with his light summer overcoat unbuttoned to
give a glimpse of his nice white tie. He and Coote
would be smoking the gold-tipped cigarettes young
Walshingham had prescribed as chic, and appreciat-
ing the music highly, "That's — puff — a very nice
bit," Kipps would say, or better, "That's nace." And
at the first grunts of the loyal anthem up they stood
with religiously uplifted hats. Whatever else you
might call them, you could never call them disloyal.

The boundary of Society was admittedly very close
to Coote and Kipps, and a leading solicitude of the
true gentleman was to detect clearly those "beneath"
him, and to behave towards them in a proper spirit.
"It's jest there it's so 'ard for me," said Kipps. He
had to cultivate a certain "distance," to acquire alto-
gether the art of checking the presumption of boun-
ders and old friends. It was diflicult, Coote admitted.
"That's what, so harkward — I mean awkward."

"1 got mixed up with this lot 'ere," said Kipps.

"You could give them a hint," said Coote.

««'0w?"

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 275

"Oh ! — the occasion will suggest something."

The occasion came one early closing night when
Kipps was sitting in a canopy chair near the band-
stand, with his summer overcoat fully open and a new
Gibus pulled slightly forward over his brow, waiting
for Coote. They were to hear the band for an hour
and then go down to assist Miss Coote and the freck-
led girl In trying over some of Beethoven's duets, if
they remembered them, that is, sufficiently well. And
as Kipps lounged back in his chair and occupied his
mind with his favourite amusement on such evenings,
which consisted chiefly in supposing that everyone
about him was wondering who he was, came a rude
rap at the canvas back and the voice of Pierce.

"It's nice to be a gentleman," said Pierce, and
swung a penny chair into position while Bugglns ap-
peared smiling agreeably on the other side and leant
upon his stick. He was smoking a common briar
pipe!

Two real ladies, very fashionably dressed and sit-
ting close at hand, glanced quickly at Pierce, and then
away again, and it was evident their wonder was at
an end.

^''He's all right," said Buggins, removing his pipe
and surveying Kipps.

" 'Ello, Buggins!" said Kipps, not too cordially.
"'Ow goes it?"

"All right. Holiday's next week. If you don't
look out, Kipps, I shall be on the Continong before
you. Eh?"

276 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"You going t' Boologne?"

"Ra-ther. Parley vous Francey. You bet."

*'/ shall 'ave a bit of a run over there one of these
days," said Kipps.

There came a pause. Pierce applied the top of his
stick to his mouth for a space and regarded Kipps.
Then he glanced at the people about them.

"I say, Kipps," he said in a distinct, loud voice,
"see 'er Ladyship lately?"

Kipps perceived the audience was to be impressed,
but he responded half-heartedly, "No, I 'aven't," he
said.

"She was along of Sir William the other night,"
said Pierce, still loud and clear, "and she asked to be
remembered to you."

It seemed to Kipps that one of the two ladies
smiled faintly and said something to the other, and
then certainly they glanced at Pierce. Kipps flushed
scarlet. ^^Did she?" he answered.

Bugglns laughed good-humouredly over his
pipe.

"Sir William suffers a lot from his gout," Pierce
continued unabashed.

(Buggins much amused with his pipe between his
teeth.)

Kipps became aware of Coote at hand.

Coote nodded rather distantly to Pierce. "Hope I
haven't kept you waiting, Kipps," he said.

"I kep' a chair for you," said Kipps and removed
a guardian foot.

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 277

"But you'v^e got your friends," said Coote.

"Oh! we don't mind," said Pierce cordially, "the
more the merrier," and, "why don't you get a chair,
Buggins?" Buggins shook his head in a sort of aside
to Pierce and Coote coughed behind his hand.

"Been kep' late at business?" asked Pierce.

Coote turned quite pale and pretended not to hear.
His eyes sought in space for a time and with a con-
vulsive movement he recognised a distant acquaint-
ance and raised his hat.

Pierce had also become a little pale. He addressed
himself to Kipps in an undertone.

"Mr. Coote, isn't he?" he asked.

Coote addressed himself to Kipps directly and ex-
clusively. His manner had the calm of extreme ten-
sion.

"Pm rather late," he said. "I think we ought
almost to be going on now."

Kipps stood up. "That's all right," he said.

"Which way are you going?" said Pierce, standing
also, and brushing some crumbs of cigarette ash from
his sleeve.

For a moment Coote was breathless. "Thank you,"
he said, and gasped. Then he delivered the neces-
sary blow; "I don't think we're in need of your so-
ciety, you know,'' and turned away.

Kipps found himself falling over chairs and things
in the wake of Coote, and then they were clear of the
crowd.

For a space Coote said nothing; then he remarked

278 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

abruptly and quite angrily for him, "I think that was
awful Cheek!"

Kipps made no reply.

The whole thing was an interesting little object
lesson in distance, and it stuck in the front of Kipps'
mind for a long time. He had particularly vivid the
face of Pierce, with an expression between astonish-
ment and anger. He felt as though he had struck
Pierce in the face under circumstances that gave
Pierce no power to reply. He did not attend very
much to the duets and even forgot at the end of one
of them to say how perfectly lovely it was.

§4

But you must not imagine that the national ideal of
a gentleman, as Coote developed it, was all a matter
of deportment and selectness, a mere isolation from
debasing associations. There is a Serious Side, a
deeper aspect of the true, True Gentleman. The True
Gentleman does not wear his heart on his sleeve. He
is a polished surface above deeps. For example, he
is deeply religious, as Coote was, as Mrs. Walshing-
ham was, but outside the walls of a church it never
appears, except perhaps now and then in a pause, in a
profound look, in a sudden avoidance. In quite a
little while Kipps also had learnt the pause, the pro-
found look, the sudden avoidance, that final refine-
ment of spirituality, impressionistic piety.

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 279

And the True Gentleman Is patriotic also. When
one saw Coote lifting his hat to the National Anthem,
then perhaps one got a glimpse of what patriotic
emotions, what worship, the polish of a gentleman
may hide. Or singing out his deep notes against the
Hosts of Midian, In the St. Stylites choir; then indeed
you plumbed his spiritual side.

Christian, dost thou heed them,

On the holy ground,
How the hosts of Mid-i-an,

Prowl and prowl around !
Christian, up and smai-it them. . , ,

But these were but gleams. For the rest, Religion,
Nationality, Passion, Money, Politics; much more so
those cardinal issues, Birth and Death, the True Gen-
tleman skirted about, and became facially rigid to-
wards and ceased to speak and panted and blew.

"One doesn't talk of that sort of thing," Coote
would say with a gesture of the knuckly hand.

"O' course," KIpps would reply, with an equal
significance.

Profundities. Deep as It were, blowing to deep.

One does not talk, but on the other hand one Is
punctilious to do. Actions speak. KIpps — in spite of
the fact that the Walshinghams were more than a
little lax — KIpps, who had formerly flitted Sunday
after Sunday from one Folkestone church to another,
had now a sitting of his own, paid for duly at Saint
Stylites. There he was to be seen, always at the sur-

28o MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

pllce evening service, and sometimes of a morning,
dressed with a sober precision, and with an eye on
Coote in the chancel. No difficulties now about find-
ing the place in his book. He became a communicant
again — he had lapsed soon after his confirmation
when the young lady in the costume-room, who was
his adopted sister, left the Emporium — and he would
sometimes go around to the Vestry for Coote after the
service. One evening he was introduced to the Hon.
and Rev. Densemore. He was much too confused to
say anything, and the noble cleric had nothing to say,
but indisputably they were Introduced.

No 1 you must not imagine our national ideal of a
gentleman is without its "serious side," without even
its stern and uncompromising side. The imagination
no doubt refuses to see Coote displaying extraordinary
refinements of courage upon the stricken field, but In
the walks of peace there Is sometimes sore need of
sternness. Charitable as one may be, one must admit
there are people who do things, impossible things;
people who place themselves "out of it" in countless
ways; people, moreover, who are by a sort of predes-
tination out of it from the beginning, and against
these Society has Invented a terrible protection for Its
Cootery, the Cut. The cut is no joke for anyone. It
is excommunication. You may be cut by an individ-
ual, you may be cut by a set or you may be — and this
is so tragic that beautiful romances have been written
about it — "Cut by the County." One figures Coote
discharging this last duty and cutting somebody —

CH. V THE PUPIL LOVER 28 1

Coote, erect and pale, never speaking, going past with
eyes of pitiless slate, lower jaw protruding a little,
face pursed up and cold and stiff.

It never dawned upon Kipps that he would one day
have to face this terrible front, to be to Coote not
only as one dead, but as one gone more than a stage
or so in decay, cut and passed, banned and outcast
for ever.

Yet so it was to be !

One cannot hide any longer that all this fine prog-
ress of Kipps is doomed to end in collapse. So far
indeed you have seen him ascend. You have seen him
becoming more refined and careful day by day, more
carefully dressed, less clumsy in the ways and methods
of social life. You have seen the gulf widening be-
tween himself and his former low associates. I have
brought you at last to the vision of him, faultlessly
dressed and posed, in an atmosphere of candlelight
and chanting, in his own sitting in one of the most
fashionable churches in Folkestone. . . . All
the time I have refrained from the lightest touch
upon the tragic note that must now creep into my
tale. Yet the net of his low connections has been
about his feet, and moreover there was something in-
terwoven in his being, . . .

CHAPTER VI

DISCORDS
§1

One day Kipps set out upon his newly-mastered
bicycle to New Romney to break the news of his
engagement to his Uncle and Aunt — this time posi-
tively. He was now a finished cyclist, but as yet an
unseasoned one ; the southwest wind, even in its sum-
mer guise, as one meets it in the Marsh, is the equiva-
lent of a reasonable hill, and ever and again he got off
and refreshed himself by a spell of wallcing. He was
walking just outside New Romney preparatory to his
triumphal entry (one hand off) when abruptly he
came upon Ann Pornick.

It chanced he was thinking about her at the time.
He had been thinking curious things; whether, after
all, the atmosphere of New Romney and the Marsh
had not some difference, some faint impalpable qual-
ity that was missing in the great and fashionable
world of Folkestone behind there on the hill. Here
there was a homeliness, a familiarity. He had noted
as he passed that old Mr. Cliffordown's gate had been

282

CH.vi DISCORDS 283

mended with a fresh piece of string. In Folkestone
he didn't take notice and he didn't care if they built
three hundred houses. Come to think of it, that was
odd. It was fine and grand to have twelve hundred
a year; it was fine to go about on trams and omnibuses
and think not a person aboard was as rich as oneself;
it was fine to buy and order this and that and never
have any work to do and to be engaged to a girl dis-
tantly related to the Earl of Beaupres, but yet there
had been a zest in the old time out here, a rare zest
in the holidays, in sunlight, on the sea beach and in
the High Street, that failed from these new things.
He thought of those bright windows of holiday that
had seemed so glorious to him in the retrospect from
his apprentice days. It was strange that now, amidst
his present splendours, they were glorious still !

All those things were over now — perhaps that was
it ! Something had happened to the world and the
old light had been turned out. He himself was
changed, and Sid was changed, terribly changed, and
Ann no doubt was changed.

He thought of her with the hair blown about her
flushed cheeks as they stood together after their
race.

Certainly she must be changed, and all the magic
she had been fraught with to the very hem of her
short petticoats gone no doubt for ever. And as he
thought that, or before and while he thought it, for
he came to all these things in his own vague and
stumbling way, he looked up, and there was Ann !

284 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

She was seven years older and greatly altered; yet
for the moment it seemed to him that she had not
changed at all. "Ann !" he said, and she, with a lift-
ing note, "It's Art Kipps !"

Then he became aware of changes — improve-
ments. She was as pretty as she had promised to be,
her blue eyes as dark as his memory of them, and with
a quick, high colour, but now Kipps by several inches
was the taller again. She was dressed in a simple grey
dress that showed her very clearly as a straight and
healthy little woman, and her hat was Sundayfied with
pink flowers. She looked soft and warm and welcom-
ing. Her face was alight to Kipps with her artless
gladness at their encounter.

"It's Art Kipps!" she said.

"Rather," said Kipps.

"You got your holidays?"

It flashed upon Kipps that Sid had not told her of
his great fortune. Much regretful meditation upon
Sid's behaviour had convinced him that he himself
was to blame for exasperating boastfulness in that
affair, and this time he took care not to err in that
direction. He erred in the other.

"I'm taking a bit of a 'oliday," he said.

"So'm I," said Ann.

"You been for a walk?" asked Kipps.

Ann showed him a bunch of wayside flowers.

"It's a long time since I seen you, Ann. Why, 'ow
long must it be? Seven — eight years nearly."

"It don't do to county" said Ann.

CH. VI DISCORDS 285

"It don't look like it," said Kipps, with the slight-
est emphasis.

"You got a moustache," said Ann, smelling her
flowers and looking at him over them, not without
admiration.

Kipps blushed.

Presently they came to the bifurcation of the
roads.

"I'm going down this way to mother's cottage,"
said Ann.

"I'll come a bit your way if I may."

In New Romney social distinctions that are pri-
mary realities in Folkestone are absolutely non-exist-
ent, and it seemed quite permissible for him to walk
with Ann, for all that she was no more than a servant.
They talked with remarkable ease to one another,
they slipped into a vein of intimate reminiscence in
the easiest manner. In a little while Kipps was
amazed to find Ann and himself at this:

"You r'ember that half sixpence? What you cut
for me?"

"Yes."

"I got it still."

She hesitated. "Funny, wasn't it?" she said, and
then, "you got yours, Artie?"

"Rather," said Kipps. "What do you think?"
and wondered in his heart of hearts why he had never
looked at that sixpence for so long.

Ann smiled at him frankly.

"I didn't expect you'd keep it," she said. "I

286 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

thought often — it was silly to keep mine. Besides,"
she reflected, "it didn't mean anything really."

She glanced at him as she spoke and met his eye.

"Oh, didn't it!" said Kipps, a little late with his
response, and realising his infidelity to Helen even
as he spoke.

"It didn't mean much anyhow," said Ann. "You
still in the drapery?"

"I'm living at Folkestone," began Kipps and de-
cided that that sufficed. "Didn't Sid tell you he met
me?"

"No! Here?"

"Yes. The other day. 'Bout a week or more ago."

"That was before I came."

"Ah! that was it," said Kipps.

" 'E's got on," said Ann. "Got 'is own shop now,
Artie."

" 'E tole me."

They found themselves outside Muggett's cot-
tages. "You going in?" said Kipps.

*'T s'pose so," said Ann.

They both hung upon the pause. Ann took a
plunge.

"D'you often come to New Romney?" she said.

"I ride over a bit at times," said Kipps.

Another pause. Ann held out her hand.

"I'm glad I seen you," she said.

Extraordinary impulses arose in neglected parts of
Kipps' being. "Ann," he said and stopped.

"Yes," said she, and was bright to him.

CH. VI DISCORDS 287

They looked at one another.

All and more than all of those first emotions of his
adolescence had come back to him. Her presence
banished a multitude of countervaling considerations.
It was Ann more than ever. She stood breathing
close to him, with her soft-looking lips a little apart
and gladness in her eyes.

"I'm awful glad to see you again," he said; "it
brings back old times."

"Doesn't it?"

Another pause. He would have liked to have had
a long talk to her, to have gone for a walk with her
or something, to have drawn nearer to her in any
conceivable way, and, above all, to have had some
more of the appreciation that shone in her eyes, but a
vestige of Folkestone still clinging to him told him it
"wouldn't do." "Well," he said, "I must be getting
on," and turned away reluctantly, with a will under
compulsion.

When he looked back from the corner she was still
at the gate. She was perhaps a little disconcerted by
his retreat. He felt that. He hesitated for a mo-
ment, half turned, stood and suddenly did great
things with his hat. That hat ! The wonderful hat
of our civilisation ! . . .

In another minute he was engaged in a singularly
absent-minded conversation with his Uncle about the
usual topics.

His Uncle was very anxious to buy him a few up-
right clocks as an investment for subsequent sale. And

288 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

there were also some very nice globes, one terrestrial
and the other celestial, in a shop at Lydd that would
look well in a drawing-room and inevitably increase in
value. . . . Kipps either did or did not agree
to this purchase ; he was unable to recollect.

The southwest wind perhaps helped him back, at
any rate he found himself through Dymchurch with-
out having noticed the place. There came an odd
effect as he drew near Hythe. The hills on the left
and the trees on the right seemed to draw together
and close in upon him until his way was straight and
narrow. He could not turn around on that treacher-
ous, half-tamed machine, but he knew that behind
him, he knew so well, spread the wide, vast flatness of
the Marsh shining under the afternoon sky. In some
way this was material to his thoughts. And as he rode
through Hythe he came upon the idea that there was
a considerable amount of incompatibility between the
existence of one who was practically a gentleman and
of Ann.

In the neighbourhood of Seabrook he began to
think he had, in some subtle way, lowered himself by
walking along by the side of Ann. . . . After
all, she was only a servant.

Ann!

She called out all the least gentlemanly instincts of
his nature. There had been a moment in their con-
versation when he had quite distinctly thought it
would really be an extremely nice thing for someone
to kiss her lips. . . . There was something

CH.vi DISCORDS 289

warming about Ann — at least for Kipps. She im-
pressed him as having somewhen during their vast
interval of separation contrived to make herself in
some distinctive way his.

Fancy keeping that half sixpence all this time !

It was the most Battering thing that had ever hap-
pened to Kipps.

§2

He found himself presently sitting over "The Art
of Conversing," lost in the strangest musings. He
got up, walked about, became stagnant at the window
for a space, roused himself and by way of something
lighter tried "Sesame and Lilies." From that, too,
his attention wondered. He sat back. Anon he
smiled, anon sighed. He arose, pulled his keys from
his pocket, looked at them, decided and went upstairs.
H'e opened the little yellow box that had been the
nucleus of all his possessions in the world, and took
out a small "Escritoire," the very humblest sort of
present, and opened it — kneeling. And there, in the
corner, was a little packet of paper, sealed as a last
defence against any prying invader, with red sealing
wax. It had gone untouched for years. He held this
little packet between finger and thumb for a moment,
regarding it, and then put down the escritoire and
broke the seal.

As he was getting into bed that night he remem-
bered something for the first time !

"Dash it!" he said. "Dashed if I told 'em this

290 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

time. . . . Well! I shall 'ave to go over to
New Romney again!"

He got into bed and remained sitting pensively on
the pillow for a space.

*'It's a rum world," he reflected after a vast in-
terval.

Then he recalled that she had noticed his mous-
tache and embarked upon a sea of egotistical musings.

He imagined himself telling Ann how rich he was.
What a surprise that would be for her !

Finally he sighed profoundly, blew out his candle
and snuggled down, and in a little while he was
asleep.

But the next morning and at intervals afterwards
he found himself thinking of Ann — Ann, the bright,
the desirable, the welcoming, and with an extraordi-
nary streakiness he wanted quite badly to go and then
as badly not to go over to New Romney again.

Sitting on the Leas in the afternoon, he had an
idea. "I ought to 'ave told 'er, I suppose, about my
being engaged.

"Ann!"

All sorts of dreams and impressions that had gone
clean out of his mental existence came back to him,
changed and brought up to date to fit her altered
presence. He thought of how he had gone back to
New Romney for his Christmas holidays, determined
to kiss her, and of the awful blankness of the discov-"
ery that she had gone away.

It seemed incredible now, and yet not wholly in-

CH. VI DISCORDS 291

credible, that he had cried real tears for her — how

many years was it ago?

§3

Daily I should thank my Maker that He did not
appoint me Censor of the world of men. I should
temper a fierce injustice with a spasmodic indecision
that would prolong rather than mitigate the bitter-
ness of the Day. For human dignity, for all con-
scious human superiority I should lack the beginnings
of charity, for bishops, prosperous schoolmasters,
judges and all large respect-pampered souls. And
more especially bishops, towards whom I bear an
atavistic. Viking grudge, dreaming not infrequently
and with invariable zest of galleys and landings and
well known living ornaments of the episcopal bench
sprinting inland on twinkling gaiters before my thirsty
blade — all these people, I say, should treat below
their deserts, but, on the other hand, for such as

Kipps . There the exasperating indecisions would

come in. The Judgment would be arrested at Kipps.
Everyone and everything would wait. You would
wait. The balance would sway and sway, and when-
ever it heeled towards an adverse decision, my finger
would set it swaying again. Kings, warriors, states-
men, brilliant women of our first families, personali-
ties, gallants, panting with indignation, headline hu-
manity in general, would stand undamned, unheeded,
or be damned in the most casual manner for their
importunity, while my eye went about for anything
possible that could be said on behalf of Kipps. . . .

292 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Albeit I fear nothing can save him from condemna-
tion upon this present score, that within two days he
was talking to Ann again.

One seeks excuses. Overnight there had been an
encounter of Chitterlow and young Walshingham in
his presence, that had certainly warped his standards.
They had called within a few minutes of each other,
and the two swayed by virile attentions to Old Me-
thuselah Four Stars, had talked against each other,
over and at the hospitable presence of Kipps. Walsh-
ingham had seemed to win at the beginning, but final-
ly Chitterlow had made a magnificent display of vo-
ciferation and swept him out of existence. At the be-
ginning Chitterlow had opened upon the great profits
of playwrights and young Walshingham had capped
him at once with a cynical, but impressive, display of
knowledge of the High Finance. If Chitterlow
boasted his thousands, young Walshingham boasted
his hundreds of thousands, and was for a space left
in sole possession of the stage, juggling with the
wealth of nations. Fie was going on by way of Finan-
cial Politics to the Overman, before Chitterlow recov-
ered from his first check, and came back to victory.
"Talking of Women," said Chitterlow, coming in
abruptly upon some things not generally known, be-
yond Walshingham's more immediate circle, about
a recently departed Empire-builder; "Talking of
Women and the way they Get at a man "

[Though as a matter of fact they had been talking
of the Corruption of Society by Speculation.]

CH. VI DISCORDS 293

Upon this new topic Chitterlow was soon mani-
festly invincible. He knew so much, he had known
so many. Young Walshingham did his best with
epigrams and reservations, but even to Kipps it was
evident that this was a book-learned depravity. One
felt Walshingham had never known the inner realities
of passion. But Chitterlow convinced and amazed.
He had run away with girls, he had been run away
with by girls, he had been in love with several at a
time — "not counting Bessie" — he had loved and lost,
he had loved and refrained, and he had loved and
failed. He threw remarkable lights upon the moral
state of America — in which country he had toured
with great success. He set his talk to the tune of one
of Mr. Kipling's best known songs. He told an inci-
dent of simple, romantic passion, a delirious dream of
love and beauty in a Saturday to Monday steamboat
trip up the Hudson, and tagged his end with, "I
learnt about women from 'er !" After that he adopted
the refrain and then lapsed into the praises of Kip-
ling. "Little Kipling," said Chitterlow, with the fa-
miliarity of affection, "he knows," and broke into
quotation :

" I've taken my fun where I found it ;

I've rogued and I've ranged in my time j

I've 'ad my picking of sweet'earts,

An' four of the lot was Prime."

(These things, I say, affect the moral standards of
the best of us.)

294 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"/V have liked to have written that," said Chitter-
low. "That's Life, that is ! But go and put It on
the Stage, put even a bit of the Realities of Life on
the Stage, and see what they'll do to you ! Only Kip-
ling could venture on a job like that. That Poem
KNOCKED me ! 1 don't say Kipling hasn't knocked
me before and since, but that was a Fair Knock Out.
And yet — you know — there's one thing in it . . .
this:

" I've taken my fun where I've found it,
And now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you 'ave known o' the others,
The less will you settle to one "

Well. In my case anyhow — I don't know how
much that proves, seeing Fm exceptional In so many
things and there's no good denying It — but so far as
Fm concerned — I tell you two, but of course you
needn't let it go any farther — Fve been perfectly
faithful to Muriel ever since I married her — ever
since. . . . Not once. Not even by accident
have I ever said or done anything In the slight-
est ." His little, brown eye became pensive after

this flattering Intimacy and the gorgeous draperies of
his abundant voice fell Into graver folds. "I learnt
about zconien fro77i Vr/' he said impressively.

"Yes," said Walshingham, getting into the hinder
spaces of that splendid pause, "a man must know
about women. And the only sound way of learning
is the experimental method."

CH. VI DISCORDS 295

"If you want to know about the experimental
method, my boy," said Chitterlow, resuming, . . .

So they talked. Ex pede Herculem, as Coote, that
cultivated polyglot, would have put it. And in the
small hours Kipps went to bed, with his brain whirl-
ing with words and whiskey, and sat for an uncon-
scionable time upon his bed edge, musing sadly upon
the unmanly monogamy of soul that had cast its
shadow upon his career, musing with his thoughts
pointing around more and more certainly to the possi-
bility of at least duplicity with Ann.

§4

For some days he had been refraining with some
insistence from going off to New Romney again. . .

I do not know if this may count in palliation of his
misconduct. Men, real Strong-Souled, Healthy Men,
should be, I suppose, impervious to conversational
atmospheres, but I have never claimed for Kipps a
place at these high levels. The unquenchable fact
remains that the next day he spent the afternoon with
Ann and found no scruple in displaying himself a
budding lover.

He had met her in the High Street, had stopped
her, and almost on the spur of the moment had boldly
proposed a walk, "for the sake of old times."

'7 don't mind," said Ann.

Her consent almost frightened Kipps. His imagi-
nation had not carried him to that. "It would be a

296 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

lark," said Kipps, and looked up the street and down.
"Now?" he said.

"1 don't mind a bit, Artie. I was just going for a
walk along towards St. Mary's."

"Let's go that way be'ind the church," said Kipps,
and presently they found themselves drifting seaward
in a mood of pleasant commonplace. For a while
they talked of Sid. It went clean out of Kipps' head
at that early stage even that Ann was a "girl" accord-
ing to the exposition of Chitterlow, and for a time he
remembered only that she was Ann. But afterwards,
with the reek of that talk in his head, he lapsed a
little from that personal relation. They came out
upon the beach and sat down in a tumbled, pebbly
place, where a meagre grass and patches of sea poppy
were growing, and Kipps reclined on his elbow and
tossed pebbles in his hand, and Ann sat up, sunlit, re-
garding him. They talked in fragments. They ex-
hausted Sid, they exhausted Ann, and Kipps was
chary of his riches.

He declined to a faint love-making. "I got that
'arf sixpence still," he said.

"Reely?"

That changed the key. "I always kept mine,
some'ow," said Ann, and there was a pause.

They spoke of how often they had thought of each
other during those intervening years. Kipps may
have been untruthful, but Ann perhaps was not. "I
met people here and there," said Ann; "but I never
met anyone quite like you, Artie."

CH. VI DISCORDS 297

"It'is jolly our meeting again, anyhow," said Kipps.
"Look at that ship out there. She's pretty close
in. . . ."

He had a dull period, became indeed almost pen-
sive, and then he was enterprising for a while. He
tossed up his pebbles so that as if by accident they
fell on Ann's hand. Then, very penitently, he stroked
the place. That would have led to all sorts of co-
quetries on the part of Flo Banks, for example, but it
disconcerted and checked Kipps to find Ann made no
objection, smiled pleasantly down on him, with eyes
half shut because of the sun. She was taking things
very much for granted.

He began to talk, and Chitterlow standards resum-
ing possession of him he said he had never forgotten
her.

"I never forgotten you either, Artie," she said.
"Funny, isn't it?"

It impressed Kipps also as funny.

He became reminiscent, and suddenly a warm sum-
mer's evening came back to him. "Remember them
cockchafers, Ann?" he said. But the reality of the
evening he recalled was not the chase of cockchafers.
The great reality that had suddenly arisen between
them was that he had never kissed Ann in his life.
He looked up and there were her lips.

He had wanted to very badly, and his memory
leaped and annihilated an interval. That old resolu-
tion came back to him and all sorts of new resolutions
passed out of mind. And he had learnt something

298 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

since those boyish days. This time he did not ask.
He went on talking, his nerves began very faintly to
quiver and his mind grew bright.

Presently, having satisfied himself that there was
no one to see, he sat up beside her and remarked upon
the clearness of the air, and how close Dungeness
seemed to them. Then they came upon a pause again.

"Ann," he whispered, and put an arm that quiv-
ered about her.

She was mute and unresisting, and, as he was to
remember, solemn.

He turned her face towards him, and kissed her
lips, and she kissed him back again — kisses frank and
tender as a child's.

§5
It was curious that in the retrospect he did not find
nearly the satisfaction in this infidelity he had imag-
ined was there. It was no doubt desperately doggish,
doggish to an almost Chltterlowesque degree to re-
cline on the beach at Littlestone with a "girl," to
make love to her and to achieve the triumph of kiss-
ing her, when he was engaged to another "girl" at
Folkestone, but somehow these two people were not
"girls," they were Ann and Helen. Particularly
Helen declined to be considered as a "girl." And
there was something In Ann's quietly friendly eyes, In
her frank smile, In the naive pressure of her hand,
there was something undefended and welcomeing that
imparted a flavour to the business upon which he had

CH. VI DISCORDS 299

not counted. He had learnt about women from her.
That refrain ran through his mind and deflected his
thoughts, but as a matter of fact he had learnt about
nothing but himself.

He wanted very much to see Ann some more and
explain. He did not clearly know what it was he
wanted to explain.

He did not clearly know anything. It is the last
achievement of the intelligence to get all of one's life
into one coherent scheme, and Kipps was only in a
measure more aware of himself as a whole than is a
tree. His existence was an affair of dissolving and
recurring moods. When he thought of Helen or Ann
or any of his friends, he thought sometimes of this
aspect and sometimes of that — and often one aspect
was finally incongruous with another. He loved
Helen, he revered Helen. He was also beginning to
hate her with some intensity. When he thought of
that expedition to Lympne, profound, vague, beauti-
ful emotions flooded his being; when he thought of
paying calls with her perforce, or of her latest com-
ment on his bearing, he found himself rebelliously
composing fierce and pungent insults, couched in the
vernacular. But Ann, whom he had seen so much less
of, was a simpler memory. She was pretty, she was
almost softly feminine, and she was possible to his
imagination just exactly where Helen was impossible.
More than anything else, she carried the charm of
respect for him, the slightest glance of her eyes was
balm for his perpetually wounded self-conceit.

300 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Chance suggestions it was set the tune of his
thoughts, and his state of health and repletion gave
the colour. Yet somehow he had this at least almost
clear in his mind, that to have gone to see Ann a
second time, to have implied that she had been in pos-
session of his thoughts through all this interval, and,
above all, to have kissed her, was shabby and wrong.
Only unhappily this much of lucidity had come now
just a few hours after it was needed.

§6

Four days after this it was that Kipps got up so
late. He got up late, cut his chin while shaving,
kicked a slipper into his sponge bath and said,
"Desh!"

Perhaps you know those intolerable mornings, dear
Reader, when you seem to have neither the heart nor
the strength to rise, and your nervous adjustments are
all wrong and your fingers thumbs, and you hate the
very birds for singing. You feel inadequate to any
demand whatever. Often such awakenings follow a
poor night's rest, and commonly they mean indiscrim-
inate eating, or those subtle mental influences old
Kipps ascribed to "Foozle He" in the system, or
worry. And with Kipps — albeit Chitterlow had again
been his guest overnight — assuredly worry had play-
ed a leading role. Troubles had been gathering upon
him for days, there had been a sort of concentration
of these hosts of Midian overnight, and in the grey
small hours Kipps had held his review.

CH. VI DISCORDS 301

The predominating trouble marched under this
banner:

Mr. kipps

Mrs. BINDON BOTTING

At Home

Thursday, September i6th

Anagrams, 4 to 6:30 R, S. V. P.

a banner that was the fac-simile of a card upon his
looking glass in the room below. And in relation to
this terribly significant document things had come to
a pass with Helen that he could only describe in his
own expressive idiom as "words."

It had long been a smouldering issue between them
that Kipps was not availing himself with any energy
or freedom of the opportunities he had of social exer-
cises, much less was he seeking additional opportuni-
ties. He had, it was evident, a peculiar dread of that
universal afternoon enjoyment, the Call, and Helen
made it unambiguously evident that this dread was
"silly" and had to be overcome. His first display of
this unmanly weakness occurred at the Coote's on the
day before he kissed Ann. They were all there, chat-
ting very pleasantly, when the little servant with the
big cap announced the younger Miss Wace.

302 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Whereupon KIpps manifested a lively horror and
rose partially from his chair. "O Gum!" he pro-
tested. "Carn't I go upstairs?"

Then he sank back, for it was too late. Very proba-
bly the younger Miss Wace had heard him as she
came in.

Helen said nothing of that, though her manner
may have shown her surprise, but afterwards she told
Kipps he must get used to seeing people, and sug-
gested that he should pay a series of calls with Mrs.
Walshingham and herself. Kipps gave a reluctant
assent at the time and afterwards displayed a talent
for evasion that she had not suspected in him. At
last she did succeed in securing him for a call upon
Miss Punchafer, of Radnor Park — a particularly
easy call because Miss Punchafer being so deaf one
could say practically what one liked — and then out-
side the gate he shirked again. "I can't go in," he
said in a faded voice.

"You must," said Helen, beautiful as ever, but
even more than a little hard and forbidding.

"I can't."

He produced his handkerchief hastily, thrust it to
his face, and regarded her over it with rounded, hos-
tile eyes.

" 'Possible," he said in a hoarse, strange voice out
of the handkerchief. "Nozzez bleedin'."

But that was the end of his power of resistance,
and when the rally for the Anagram Tea occurred she
bore down his feeble protests altogether. She insisted.

CH. VI DISCORDS 303

She said frankly, **I am going to give you a good talk-
ing to about this," and she did.

From Coote he gathered something of the nature
of Anagrams and Anagram parties. An anagram,
Coote explained, was a word spelt the same way as
another, only differently arranged, as, for instance,
T. O. C. O. E. would be an anagram for his own
name, Coote.

"T. O. C. O. E.," repeated Kipps very carefully.

"Or T. O. E. C. O.," said Coote.

"Or T. O. E. C. O., said Kipps, assisting his poor
head by nodding it at each letter.

"Toe Company like," he said in his efforts to com-
prehend.

When Kipps was clear what an anagram meant,
Coote came to the second heading, the Tea. Kipps
gathered there might be from thirty to sixty people
present, and that each one would have an anagram
pinned on. "They give you a card to put your guesses
on, rather like a dance programme, and then, you
know, you go around and guess," said Coote. "It's
rather good fun."

"Oo rather!" said Kipps, with simulated gusto.

"It shakes everybody up together," said Coote.

Kipps smiled and nodded.

In the small hours all his painful meditations were
threaded by the vision of that Anagram Tea ; it kept
marching to and fro and in and out of all his other
troubles, from thirty to sixty people, mostly ladies
and callers, and a great number of the letters of the

304 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

alphabet, and more particularly P. I. K. P. S. and
T. O. E. C. O., and he was trying to make one word
out of the whole interminable procession.

This word, as he finally gave it with some emphasis
to the silence of the night, was "Demn!"

Then, wreathed as it were in this lettered proces-
sion, was the figure of Helen as she had appeared at
the moment of "words" ; her face a little hard, a little
irritated, a little disappointed. He imagined himself
going around and guessing under her eye.

He tried to think of other things, without lapsing
upon a still deeper uneasiness that was wreathed with
yellow sea poppies, and the figures of Buggins, Pierce
and Carshot, three murdered Friendships, rose re-
proachfully in the stillness and changed horrible ap-
prehensions into unspeakable remorse. Last night
had been their customary night for the banjo, and
Kipps, with a certain tremulous uncertainty^ had put
old Methuselah amidst a retinue of glasses on the
table and opened a box of choice cigars. In vain.
They were in no need, it seemed, of his society. But
instead Chitterlow had come, anxiouij to know if it
was all right about that syndicate plan. He had de-
clined anything but a very weak whiskey and soda,
"just to drink," at least until business was settled, and
had then opened the whole affair with an effect of
great orderliness to Kipps. Soon he was taking an-
other whiskey by sheer inadvertency, and the complex
fabric of his conversation was running more easily
from the broad loom of his mind. Into that pattern

CH. VI DISCORDS 305

had interwoven a narrative of extensive alterations in
the Pestered Butterfly — the neck and beetle business
u as to be restored — the story of a grave difference of
opinion with Mrs. Chitterlow, where and how to live
after the play had succeeded, the reasons why the
Hon. Thomas Norgate had never financed a syndi-
cate, and much matter also about the syndicate now
under discussion. But if the current of their conver-
sation had been vortical and crowded, the outcome
was perfectly clear. Kipps was to be the chief par-
ticipator in the syndicate, and his contribution was to
be two thousand pounds. Kipps groaned and rolled
over and found Helen, as it were, on the other side.
"Promise me," she had said, "you won't do anything
without consulting me."

Kipps at once rolled back to his former position,
and for a space lay quite still. He felt like a very
young rabbit in a trap.

Then suddenly, with extraordinary distinctness, his
heart cried out for Ann, and he saw her as he had
seen her at New Romney, sitting amidst the yellow
sea popples with the sunlight on her face. His heart
called out for her in the darkness as one calls for
rescue. He knew, as though he had known it always,
that he loved Helen no more. He wanted Ann, he
wanted to hold her and be held by her, to kiss her
again and again, to turn his bark forever on all these
other things. ...

He rose late, but this terrible discovery was still
there, undispelled by cockcrow or the day. He rose

3o6 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

in a shattered condition, and he cut himself while
shaving, but at last he got into his dining-room and
could pull the bell for the hot constituents of his mul-
tifarious breakfast. And then he turned to his letters.
There were two real letters in addition to the cus-
tomary electric belt advertisement, continental lottery
circular and betting tout's card. One was in a slight
mourning envelope and addressed in an unfamiliar
hand. This he opened iirst and discovered a note :

Mrs. RAYMOND WAGE

Requests the pleasure of

Mr. KIPPS"

Company at Dinner

on Tuesday, September 21st, at 8 o'clock

With a hasty movement Kipps turned his mind to
the second letter. It was an unusually long one from
his Uncle, and ran as follows :

"My Dear Nephew:

"We are considerably startled by your letter
though expecting something of the sort and disposed
to hope for the best. If the young lady is a relation
to the Earl of Beaupres well and good but take care
you are not being imposed upon for there are many
who will be glad enough to snap you up now your

CH. VI DISCORDS 307

circumstances are altered — I waited on the old Earl
once while In service and he was remarkably close
with his tips and suffered from corns. A hasty old
gent and hard to please — I daresay he has forgotten
me altogether — and anyhow there Is no need to rake
up bygones. Tomorrow is bus day and as you say
the young lady is living near by we shall shut up shop
for there Is really nothing doing now what with all
the visitors bringing everything with them down to
their very children's pails and say how de do to her
and give her a bit of a kiss and encouragement if we
think her suitable — she will be pleased to see your old
uncle — We wish we could have had a look at her first
but still there is not much mischief done and hoping
that all will turn out well yet I am

"Your affectionate Uncle

"Edward George Kipps.

"My heartburn still very bad. I shall bring over a
few bits of rhubub I picked up, a sort you won't get
In Folkestone and if possible a good bunch of flowers
for the young lady."

"Comin' over to-day," said Kipps, standing help-
lessly with the letter In his hand.

" 'Ow, the Juice ?

"I carn't.

"KIss'er!"

"I carn't even face 'er !'*

A terrible anticipation of that gathering framed
inself in his mind — a hideous, impossible disaster.

3o8 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

His voice went up to a note of despair, "And it's
too late to telegrarf and stop 'em !"

About twenty minutes after this, an outporter in
Castle Hill Avenue was accosted by a young man,
with a pale, desperate face, an exquisitely rolled um-
brella and a heavy Gladstone bag.

"Carry this to the station, will you?" said the
young man. "I want to ketch the nex' train to Lon-
don. . . . You'll 'ave to look sharp — I 'aven't
very much time."

CHAPTER VII

LONDON

§1

London was Kipps' third world. There were no
doubt other worlds, but Kipps knew only these three ;
firstly. New Romney and the Emporium, constituting
his primary world, his world of origin, which also
contained Ann ; secondly, the world of culture and
refinement, the world of which Coote was chaperon,
and into which Kipps was presently to marry, a world
it was fast becoming evident absolutely incompatible
with the first, and, thirdly, a world still to a large
extent unexplored, London. London presented itself
as a place of great, grey spaces and incredible multi-
tudes of people, centring about Charing Cross sta-
tion and the Royal Grand Hotel, and containing at
unexpected arbitrary points shops of the most amaz-
ing sort, statuary. Squares, Restaurants — where it
was possible for clever people like Walshingham to
order a lunch item by item, to the waiters' evident re-
spect and sympathy — exhibitions of incredible things
— the Walshinghams had taken him to the Arts and

309

3IO MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Crafts and to a picture gallery — and theatres. Lon-
don, moreover, is rendered habitable by hansom cabs.
Young Walshingham was a natural cab taker, he was
an all-round large minded young man, and he had
in the course of their two days' stay taken Kipps
into no less than nine, so that Kipps was singularly
not afraid of these vehicles. He knew that where-
ever you were, so soon as you were thoroughly lost
you said "Hi !" to a cab, and then "Royal Grand Ho-
tel." Day and night these trusty conveyances are re-
turning the strayed Londoner back to his point of de-
parture, and were it not for their activity in a little
while the whole population, so vast and incomprehen-
sible is the intricate complexity of this great city,
would be hopelessly lost forever. At any rate, that
is how the thing presented itself to Kipps, and I have
heard much the same from visitors from America.

His train was composed of corridor carriages, and
he forgot his trouble for a time in the wonders of
this modern substitute for railway compartments. He
went from the non-smoking to the smoking carriage
and smoked a cigarette, and strayed from his second-
class carriage to a first and back. But presently Black
Care got aboard the train and came and sat beside
him. The exhilaration of escape had evaporated
now, and he was presented with a terrible picture of
his Aunt and Uncle arriving at his lodgings and find-
ing him fled. He had left a hasty message that he
was called away suddenly on business, "v^er' impor-
tant-business," and they were to be sumptuously en-

CH. VII LONDON 311

tertained. His immediate motive had been his pas-
sionate dread of an encounter between these excellent
but unrefined old people and the Walshinghams, but
now that end was secured, he could see how thwarted
and exasperated they would be.

How to explain to them?

He ought never to have written to tell them !

He ought to have got married and told them af-
terwards.

He ought to have consulted Helen.

"Promise me," she had said.

"Oh, desh!" said Kipps, and got up and walked
back into the smoking car and began to consume cigar-
ettes.

Suppose, after all, they found out the Walshing-
ham's address and went there !

At Charing Cross, however, there were distractions
again. He took a cab in an entirely Walshingham
manner, and was pleased to note the enhanced respect
of the cabman when he mentioned the Royal Grand.
He followed Walshingham's routine on their pre-
vious visit with perfect success. They were very nice
in the office, and gave him an excellent room at four-
teen shillings the night.

He went up and spent a considerable time in exam-
ining the furniture of his room, scrutinising him-
self in its various mirrors and sitting on the edge
of the bed whistling. It was a vast and splendid apart-
ment, and cheap at fourteen shillings. But, finding
the figure of Ann inclined to resume possession of

312 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

his mind, he roused himself and descended by the
staircase after a momentary hesitation before the
hft. He had thought of lunch, but he drifted into
the great drawing-room and read a guide to the Ho-
tels of Europe for a space, until a doubt whether he
was entitled to use this palatial apartment without
extra charge arose in his mind. He would have liked
something to eat very much now, but his inbred ter-
ror of the table v/as very strong. He did at last get
by a porter in uniform towards the dining-room, but
at the sight of a number of waiters and tables, with
remarkable complications of knives and glasses, ter-
ror seized him, and he backed out again, with a mum-
bled remark to the waiter in the doorway about this
not being the way.

He hovered in the hall and lounge until he thought
the presiding porter regarded him with suspicion, and
then went up to his room again by the staircase, got
his hat and umbrella and struck boldly across the
courtyard. He would go to a restaurant instead.

He had a moment of elation in the gateway. He
felt all the Strand must notice him as he emerged
through the great gate of the Hotel. "One of these
here rich swells," they would say. "Don't they do it
just!" A cabman touched his hat. "No fear," said
Kipps, pleasantly.

Then he remembered he was hungry again.

Yet he decided he was in no great hurry for lunch,
in spite of an internal protest, and turned eastward
along the Strand in a leisurely manner. He tried to

CH. VII LONDON 313

find a place to suit him soon enough. He tried to
remember the sort of things Walshingham had or-
dered. Before all things he didn't want to go into a
place and look, like a fool. Some of these places rook
you dreadful, besides making fun of you. There was
a place near Essex Street where there was a window
brightly full of chops, tomatoes and lettuce. He
stopped at this and reflected for a time, and then it
occurred to him that you were expected to buy these
things raw and cook them at home. Anyhow, there
was sufficient doubt in the matter to stop him. He
drifted on to a neat window with champagne bottles,
a dish of asparagus and a framed menu of a two
shilling lunch. He was about to enter, when for-
tunately he perceived two waiters looking at him over
the back screen of the window with a most ironical
expression, and he sheered off at once. There was a
wonderful smell of hot food half way down Fleet
Street and a nice looking Tavern with several doors,
but he could not decide which door. His nerve was
going under the strain.

He hesitated at Farringdon Street and drifted up
to St. Paul's and round the church yard, full chiefly
of dead bargains in the shop windows, to Cheapside.
But now Kipps was getting demoralised, and each
house of refreshment seemed to promise still more
complicated obstacles to food. He didn't know how
you went in and w^hat was the correct thing to do
with your hat, he didn't know what you said to the
waiter or what you called the different things ; he was

314 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

convinced absolutely he would "fumble," as Shalford
would have said, and look like a fool. Somebody
might laugh at him ! The hungrier he got the more
unendurable was the thought that anyone should
laugh at him. For a time he considered an extraor-
dinary expedient to account for his ignorance. He
would go in and pretend to be a foreigner and not
know English. Then they might understand. . . .
Presently he had drifted into a part of London where
there did not seem to be any refreshment places
at all.

"Oh, desk/" said Kipps, in a sort of agony of in-
decisiveness. "The very nex' place I see, in I go."

The next place was a fried fish shop in a little
side street, where there were also sausages on a gas-
lit grill.

He would have gone in, but suddenly a new scruple
came to him, that he was too well dressed for the
company he could see dimly through the steam sit-
ting at the counter and eating with a sort of non-
chalant speed.

§2

He was half minded to resort to a hansom and
brave the terrors of the dining-room of the Royal
Grand — they wouldn't know why he had gone out
really — when the only person he knew in London ap-
peared (as the only person one does know will do in

CH.vii LONDON 315

London) and slapped him on the shoulder. Kipps
was hovering at a window at a few yards from the
fish shop, pretending to examine some really strik-
ingly cheap pink baby linen, and trying to settle fin-
ally about those sausages.

"Hullo, Kipps!" cried Sid; "spending the mil-
lions?"

Kipps turned, and was glad to perceive no linger-
ing vestige of the chagrin that had been so painful
at New Romney. Sid looked grave and important,
and he wore a quite new silk hat that gave a com-
mercial touch to a generally socialistic costume. For
a moment the sight of Sid uplifted Kipps wonder-
fully. He saw him as a friend and helper, and only
presently did it come clearly into his mind that this
was the brother of Ann.

He made amiable noises.

"I've just been up this way," Sid explained, "buy-
ing a second-hand 'namelling stove. . . . I'm go-
ing to 'namel myself."

"Lor'!" said Kipps.

"Yes. Do me a lot of good. Let the customer
choose his colour. See? What brings you up?"

Kipps had a momentary vision of his foiled Uncle
and Aunt. "Jest a bit of a change," he said.

Sid came to a swift decision. "Come down to my
little show. I got someone I'd like to see talking to
you."

Even then Kipps did not think of Ann in this con-
nection,

3i6 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

*'Well," he said, trying to invent an excuse on the
spur of the moment. "Fact is," he explained, "I was
jest looking 'round to get a bit of lunch."

"Dinner, we call it," said Sid. "But that's all
-right. You can't get anything to eat hereabout. If
you're not too haughty to do a bit of slumming,
there's some mutton spoiling for me now "

The word "mutton" affected Kipps greatly.

"It won't take us 'arf an hour," said Sid, and
Kipps was carried.

He discovered another means of London locomo-
tion in the Underground Railway, and recovered his
self-possession in that interest. "You don't mind go-
ing third?" asked Sid, and Kipps said, "Nort a bit
of it." They were silent in the train for a time, on
account of strangers in the carriage, and then Sid be-
gan to explain who it was that he wanted Kipps to
meet, "It's a chap named Masterman — do you no
end of good.

"He occupies our first floor front room, you know.
It isn't so much for gain I let as company. We don't
want the whole 'ouse, and another, I knew the man
before. Met him at our Sociological, and after a bit
he said he wasn't comfortable where he was. That's
how it came about. He's a first-class chap — first-class.
Science ! You should see his books !

"Properly he's a sort of journalist. He's written
a lot of things, but he's been too ill lately to do very
much. Poetry he's written, all sorts. He writes for
the Cominouzveal sometimes, and sometimes he re-

CH. VII LONDON 317

views books. 'E's got 'caps of books — 'caps. Be-
sides selling a lot.

"He knows a regular lot of people, and all sorts
of things. He's been a dentist, and he's a qualified
chemist, an' I seen him often reading German and
French. Taught 'imself. He was here "

Sid indicated South Kensington, which had come
opportunely outside the carriage windows, with a nod
of his head, " — three years. Studying science. But
you'll see 'im. When he really gets to talking — he
pours it out."

"Ah!" said Kipps, nodding sympathetically, with
his two hands on his umbrella knob.

"He'll do big things some day," said Sid. "He's
written a book on science already. 'Physiography,'
it's called. 'Elementary Physiography' ! Some day
he'll write an Advanced — when he gets time."

He let this soak into Kipps.

"I can't introduce you to Lords and swells," he
went on, "but I can show you a Famous Man, that's
going to be. I can do that. Leastways — unless "

Sid hesitated.

"He's got a frightful cough," he said.

"He won't care to talk with me," weighed Kipps.

"That's all right; he won't mind. He's fond of
talking. He'd talk to anyone," said Kid, reassur-
ingly, and added a perplexing bit of Londonized
Latin. "He doesn't pute anything, non alienum. You
know."

"I know," said Kipps, intelligently, over his um-

3i8 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

brella knob, though of course that was altogether un-
true.

§3

Kipps found Sid's shop a practical looking estab-
lishment, stocked with the most remarkable collec-
tion of bicycles and pieces of bicycle that he had ever
beheld. "My hiring stock," said Sid, with a wave to
this ironmongery, "and there's the best machine at
a democratic price in London, The Red-Flag, built
by me. See?"

He indicated a graceful, grey-brown framework in
the window. "And there's my stock of accessories
— store prices.

"Go In for motors a bit," added Sid.

"Mutton?" said Kipps, not hearing him distinctly.

"Motors, I said. . . . 'Owever, Mutton De-
partment 'ere," and he opened a door that had a cur-
tain guarded window In Its upper panel, to reveal a
little room with red walls and green furniture, with
a white clothed table and the generous promise of
a meal. "Fanny !" he shouted. "Here's Art Kipps."

A bright-eyed young woman of five or six and
twenty in a pink print appeared, a little flushed from
cooking, and wiped a hand on an apron and shook
hands and smiled, and said it would all be ready In a
minute. She went on to say she had heard of Kipps
and his luck, and meanwhile Sid vanished to draw
the beer, and returned with two glasses for himself
and Kipps.

CH. vii LONDON 319

"Drink that," said Sid, and Kipps felt all the bet-
ter for it.

"I give Mr. Masterman 'is upstairs a hour ago,"
said Mrs. Sid. "I didn't think 'e ought to wait."

A rapid succession of brisk movements on the part
of everyone, and they were all four at dinner — the
fourth person being Master Walt Whitman Pornick,
a cheerful young gentleman of one and a half, who
was given a spoon to hammer on the table with to
keep him quiet, and who got "Kipps" right at the
first effort and kept it all through the meal, combin-
ing it first with this previous acquisition, and then that.
"Peacock Kipps" said Master Walt, at which there
was great laughter, and also "More Mutton,
Kipps."

"He's a regular oner," said Mrs. Sid, "for catch-
ing up words. You can't say a word but what 'e's
on to it."

There were no serviettes and less ceremony, and
Kipps thought he had never enjoyed a meal so much.
Everyone was a little excited by the meeting and chat-
ting, and disposed to laugh, and things went off eas-
ily from the very beginning. If there was a pause
Master Walt filled it in. Mrs. Sid. who tempered
her enormous admiration for Sid's intellect and his
socialism and his severe business methods by a moth-
erly sense of her sex and seniority, spoke of them both
as "you boys," and dilated — when she was not urging
Kipps to have some more of this or that — on the dis-
parity between herself and her husband.

320 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"Shouldn't ha' thought there was a year between
you," said Kipps; "you seem jest a match."

"/'wz his match, anyhow," said Mrs. Sid, and no
epigram of young Walshingham's was ever better re-
ceived.

"Match," said young Walt, coming in on the trail
of the joke and getting a round for himself.

Any sense of superior fortune had long vanished
from Kipps' mind, and he found himself looking at
host and hostess with enormous respect. Really, old
Sid was a wonderful chap, here in his own house at
two and twenty, carving his own mutton and lording
it over wife and child. No legacies needed by him!
And Mrs. Sid, so kind and bright and hearty! And
the child, old Sid's child ! Old Sid had jumped round
a bit. It needed the sense of his fortune at the back
of his mind to keep Kipps from feeling abject. He
resolved he'd buy young Walt something tremendous
in toys at the first opportunity.

"Drop more beer. Art?"

"Right you are, old man."

"Cut Mr. Kipps a bit more bread, Sid.'*

"Can't I pass you a bit?"

Sid was all right, Sid was, and there was no mis-
take about that.

It was growing up in his mind that Sid was the
brother of Ann, but he said nothing about her for
excellent reasons. After all, because he remembered
Sid's irritation at her name when they had met in New
Romney seemed to show a certain separation. They

CH. VII LONDON 321

diidn't tell each other much. . . . He didn't
know how things might be between Ann and Sid,
either.

Still, for all that, Sid was Ann's brother.

The furniture of the room did not assert itself very
much above the cheerful business at the table, but
Kipps was impressed with the idea that it was pretty.
There was a dresser at the end with a number of gay
plates and a mug or so, a Labour Day poster, by
Walter Crane, on the wall, and through the glass and
over the blind of the shop door one had a glimpse of
the bright coloured advertisement cards of bicycle
dealers, and a shelfful of boxes labelled. The Para-
gon Bell, The Scarum Bell, and The Patent Omi I
Horn.

It seemed incredible that he had been in Folke-
stone that morning, and even now his Aunt and
Uncle !

Brrr. It didn't do to think of his Aunt and Uncle.

§4

When Sid repeated his invitation to come and see
Masterman, Kipps, now flushed with beer and Irish
stew, said he didn't mind if he did, and after a pre-
liminary shout from Sid that was answered by a voice
and a cough, the two went upstairs.

"Masterman's a rare one," said Sid over his arm
and in an undertone. "You should hear him speak
at a meeting. ... If he's in form, that is."

322 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

He rapped and went into a large, untidy room.

"This is Kipps," he said. "You know. The chap
I told you of. With twelve 'undred a year."

Masterman sat gnawing at an empty pipe and as
close to the fire as though it was alight and the sea-
son midwinter. Kipps concentrated upon him for a
space, and only later took in something of the frowsy
furniture, the little bed half behind, and evidently
supposed to be wholly behind, a careless screen, the
spittoon by the fender, the remains of a dinner on the
chest of drawers and the scattered books and papers.
Masterman's face showed him a man of forty or
more, with curious hollows at the side of his fore-
head and about his eyes. His eyes were very bright;
there was a spot of red in his cheeks, and the wiry
black moustache under his short, red nose had been
trimmed with scissors into a sort of brush along his
upper lip. His teeth were darkened ruins. His
jacket collar was turned up about a knitted white neck
wrap, and his sleev^es betrayed no cuffs. He did not
rise to greet Kipps, but held out a thin wristed hand
and pointed with the other to a bedroom arm chair.

"Glad to see you," he said. "Sit down and make
yourself at home. Will you smoke?"

Kipps said he would, and produced his store. He
was about to take one, and then, with a civil after-
thought, handed the packet first to Masterman and
Sid. Masterman pretended surprise to find his pipe
out before he took one. There was an interlude of
matches. Sid pushed the end of the screen out of his

CH. VII LONDON 323

way, sat down on the bed thus frankly admitted, and
prepared, with a certain quiet satisfaction of manner,
to witness Masterman's treatment of Kipps.

"And how does it feel to have twelve hundred a
year?" asked Masterman, holding his cigarette to his
nose tip in a curious manner.

"It's rum," confided Kipps, after a reflective inter-
val. "It feels juiced rum."

"I never felt it," said Masterman.

"It takes a bit of getting into," said Kipps. "I
can tell you that."

Masterman smoked and regarded Kipps with curi-
ous eyes.

"I expect it does," he said presently.

"And has it made you perfectly happy?" he asked,
abruptly.

"I couldn't 'ardly say that," said Kipps.

Masterman smiled. "No," he said. "Has it made
you much happier?"

"It did at first."

"Yes. But you got used to it. How long, for ex-
ample, did the real delirious excitement last?"

"Oo, that! Perhaps a week," said Kipps.

Masterman nodded his head. "That's what dis-
courages me from amassing wealth," he said to Sid.
"You adjust yourself. It doesn't last. I've always
had an inkling of that, and it's interesting to get it
confirmed. I shall go on sponging for a bit longer on
you, I think."

"You don't," said Sid. "No fear."

324 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"Twenty-four thousand pounds," said Masterman,
and blew a cloud of smoke. "Lord ! Doesn't it worry
you?"

"It is a bit worrying at times. . . . Things
'appen."

"Going to marry?"

"Yes."

"H'm. Lady, I guess, of a superior social posi-
tion?"

"Rather," said Kipps. "Cousin to the Earl of
Beaupres."

Masterman readjusted his long body with an air
of having accumulated all the facts he needed. He
snuggled his shoulder-blades down into the chair and
raised his angular knees. "I doubt," he said, flicking
cigarette ash into the atmosphere, "if any great gain
or loss of money does — as things are at present —
make more than the slightest difference in one's hap-
piness. It ought to — if money was what it ought to
be, the token for given service; one ought to get an
increase in power and happiness for every pound one
got. But the plain fact is the times are out of joint,
and money — money, like everything else, is a decep-
tion and a disappointment."

He turned his face to Kipps and enforced his next
words with the index finger of his lean, lank hand.
"If I thought othenvise," he said, "I should exert
myself to get some. But, if one sees things clearly,
one is so discouraged. So confoundedly discouraged.
, , . When you first got your money, you thought

CH. VII LONDON 325

that it meant you might buy just anything you fan-
cied?"

"I was a bit that way," said Kipps.

"And you found that you couldn't. You found
that for all sorts of things it was a question of where
to buy and how to buy, and what you didn't know
how to buy with your money, straight away this world
planted something else upon you "

"I got rather done over a banjo first day," said
Kipps. "Leastways, my Uncle says."

"Exactly," said Masterman.

Sid began to speak from the bed. "That's all very
well, Masterman," he said, "but, after all, money is
Power, you know. You can do all sorts of
things "

"I'm talking of happiness," said Masterman. "You
can do all sorts of things with a loaded gun in the
Hammersmith Broadway, but nothing — practically —
that will make you or any one else very happy. Noth-
ing. Power's a different matter altogether. As for
happiness, you want a world in order before money
or property, or any of those things that have any
real value, and this world, I tell you, is hopelessly out
of joint. Man is a social animal with a mind nowa-
days that goes around the globe, and a community
cannot be happy in one part and unhappy in another.
It's all or nothing, no patching any more for ever.
It is the standing mistake of the world not to under-
stand that. Consequently people think there is a
class or order somewhere, just above them or just

326 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

below them, or a country or place somewhere, that Is
really safe and happy. The fact is, Society Is one
body, and It Is either well or 111. That's the law. This
society we live In Is 111. It's a fractious, feverish In-
valid, gouty, greedy and Ul-nourlshed. You can't have
a happy left leg with neuralgia, or a happy throat
with a broken leg. That's my position, and that's the
knowledge you'll come to. I'm so satisfied of It that I
sit here and wait for my end quite calmly, sure that I
can't better things by bothering — In my time, and so
far as I am concerned, that Is. I'm not even greedy
any more — my egotism's at the bottom of a pond,
with a philosophical brick around its neck. The world
is ill, my time Is short and my strength Is small. I'm
as happy here as anywhere."

He coughed and was silent for a moment, then
brought the Index finger around to Kipps again.
You've had the opportunity of sampling two grades
of society, and you don't find the new people you're
among much better or any happier than the old?"

"No," said Kipps, reflectively. "No. I 'aven't

seen It quite like that before, but . No. They're

not."

"And y6u might go all up the scale and down the
scale and find the same thing. Man's a gregarious
beast, a gregarious beast, and no money will buy you
out of your own time — any more than out of your
own skill. All the way up and all the way down the
scale there's the same discontent. No one Is quite
sure where they stand, and everyone's fretting. The

CH.vii LONDON 327

herd's uneasy and feverish. All the old tradition goes
or has gone, and there's no one to make a new tra-
dition. Where are your nobles now? Where are
your gentlemen? They vanished directly the peasant
found out he wasn't happy and ceased to be a peasant.
There's big men and little men mixed up together,
that's all. None of us know where we are. Your
cads in a bank holiday train and your cads on a two
thousand pound motor; except for a difference in
scale, there's not a pin to choose between them. Your
smart society is as low and vulgar and uncomfortable
for a balanced soul as a gin palace, no more and no
less; there's no place or level of honour or fine living
left in the world; so what's the good of climb-
ing?"

'"Ear, 'ear," said Sid.

"It's true," said Kipps.

"I don't climb," said Masterman, and accepted
Kipps' silent offer of another cigarette.

"No," he said. "This world is out of joint. It's
broken up, and I doubt if it will heal. I doubt very
much if it'll heal. We're in the beginning of the
Sickness of the World."

He rolled his cigarette in his lean fingers and re-
peated with satisfaction: "The Sickness of the
World."

"It's we've got to make it better," said Sid, and
looked at Kipps.

"Ah, Sid's an optimist," said Masterman.

"So are you, most times," said Sid.

328 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Kipps lit another cigarette with an air of intelli-
gent participation.

"Frankly," said Masterman, recrossing his legs
and expelling a jet of smoke luxuriously, "frankly,
I think thas civilisation of ours is on the topple,"

"There's Socialism," said Sid.

"There's no imagination to make use of it."

"We've got to make one," said Sid.

"In a couple of centuries perhaps," said Master-
man. "But meanwhile we're going to have a pretty
acute attack of confusion. Universal confusion.
Like one of those crushes when men are killed and
maimed for no reason at all, going into a meeting
or crowding for a train. Commercial and Industrial
Stresses. Political Exploitation. Tariff Wars. Revo-
lutions. All the bloodshed that will come of some
fools calling half the white world yellow. These
things alter the attitude of everybody to everybody.
Everybody's going to feel 'em. Every fool in the
world panting and shoving. We're all going to be
as happy and comfortable as a household during a
removal. What else can we expect?"

Kipps was moved to speak, but not in answer to
Masterman's enquiry. "I've never rightly got the
'eng of this Socialism," he said. "What's it going
to do, like?"

They had been imagining that he had some ele-
mentary idea in the matter, but as soon as he had
made it clear that he hadn't, Sid plunged at exposi-
tion, and in a little while Masterman, abandoning

CH. VII LONDON 329

his pose of the detached man ready to die, joined in.
At first he joined in only to correct Sid's version, but
afterwards he took control. His manner changed.
He sat up and rested his elbow on his knees, and his
cheek flushed a little. He expanded his case against
Property and the property class with such vigour that
Kipps was completely carried away, and never
thought of asking for a clear vision of the thing that
would fill the void this abolition might create. For
a time he quite forgot his own private opulence. And
it was as if something had been lit in Masterman.
His languor passed. He enforced his words by ges-
tures of his long, thin hands. And as he passed
swiftly from point to point of his argument it was
evident he grew angry.

"To-day," he said, "the world Is ruled by rich
men ; they may do almost anything they like with the
world. And what are they doing? Laying it
waste!"

"Hear, hear!" said Sid, very sternly.

Masterman stood up, gaunt and long, thrust his
hands in his pockets and turned his back to the fire-
place.

"Collectively, the rich to-day have neither heart
nor imagination. No ! They own machinery, they
have knowledge and instruments and powers beyond
all previous dreaming, and what are they doing with
them ? Think what they are doing with them, Kipps,
and think what they might do. God gives them a
power like the motor car, and all they can do with it

330 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

is to go careering about the roads in goggled masks
killing children and making machinery hateful to the
soul of man! ("True," said Sid, "true.") God
gives them means of communication, power unparal-
leled of every sort, time and absolute liberty! They
waste it all in folly! Here under their feet (and
Kipps' eyes followed the direction of a lean index
finger to the hearthrug) under their accursed wheels,
the great mass of men festers and breeds in darkness,
darkness those others make by standing in the light.
The darkness breeds and breeds. It knows no better.
. Unless you can crawl or pander or rob you
must stay in the stew you are born in. And those
rich beasts above claw and clutch as though they had
nothing! They grudge us our schools, they grudge
us a gleam of light and air, they cheat us and then
seek to forget us. . . . There is no rule, no
guidance, only accidents and happy flukes.
Our multitudes of poverty increase, and this crew
of rulers makes no provision, foresees nothing, an-
ticipates nothing. . . ."

He paused and made a step, and stood over Kipps
in a white heat of anger. Kipps nodded in a non-
commital manner and looked hard and rather gloom-
ily at his host's slipper as he talked.

"It isn't as though thev had something to show
for the waste they make of us, Kipps. They haven't.
They are ugly and cowardly and mean. Look at
their women! Painted, dyed and drugged, hiding
their ugly shapes under a load of dress ! There isn*t

CH. VII LONDON 331

a woman in the swim of society at the present time,
-would wouldn't sell herself, body and soul, who
wouldn't lick the boots of a Jew or marry a nigger,
rather than live decently on a hundred a year ! On
what would be wealth for you and me ! They know
it. They know we know it. . . . No one be-
lieves in them. No one believes in nobility any more.
Nobody believes in kingship any more. Nobody be-
lieves there Is justice In the law. . . . But peo-
ple have habits, people go on in the old grooves, as
long as there's work, as long as there's weekly
money. ... It won't last, Kipps."

He coughed and paused. "Wait for the lean
years," he cried. "Wait for the lean years." And
suddenly he fell into a struggle with his cough and
spat a gout of blood. "It's nothing," he said to
Kipps' note of startled horror.

He went on talking, and the protests of his cough
interlaced with his words, and Sid beamed in an ec-
stasy of painful admiration.

"Look at the fraud they have let life become, the
miserable mockery of the hope of one's youth. What
have / had? I found mvself at thirteen being forced
into a factory like a rabbit into a chloroformed box.
Thirteen ! — when their children are babies. But
even a child of that age could see what It meant, that
Hell of a factory ! Monotony and toil and contempt
and dishonour! And then death. So I fought — at
thirteen !"

Minton's "crawling up a drain pipe until you die"

332 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

echoed in Kipps' mind, but Masterman, instead of
Minton's growl, spoke in a high, indignant tenor.

"1 got out at last — somehow," he said, quietly, sud-
denly plumping back, in his chair. He went on after
a pause. "For a bit. Some of us get out by luck,
some by cunning, and crawl on to the grass, exhausted
and crippled to die. That's a poor man's success,
Kipps. Most of us don't get out at all. I worked
all day and studied half the night, and here I am with
the common consequences. Beaten ! And never once
have I had a fair chance, never once!" His lean,
clenched fist flew out in a gust of tremulous anger.
*'These Skunks shut up all the university scholarships
at nineteen for fear of men like me. And then — do
nothin'. . . . We're wasted for nothing. By
the time I'd learnt something the doors were locked.
I thought knowledge would do it — I did think that !
I've fought for knowledge as other men fight for
bread. I've starved for knowledge. I've turned my
back on women; I've done even that. I've burst my
accursed lung. . . " His voice rose with impo-
tent anger, "I'm a better man than any ten princes
alive ! And I'm beaten and wasted. I've been crushed,
trampled and defiled by a drove of hogs. I'm no use
to myself or the world. I've thrown my life away
to make myself too good for use in this huckster's
scramble. If I had gone in for business, if I had gone
in for plotting to cheat my fellow men — ah, well !
It's too late. It's too late for that, anyhow. It's too
late for anything now 1 And I couldn't have done it.

CH. vii LONDON 333

. . . And over in New York now there's a pet of
society making a corner in wheat !

"By God!" he cried hoarsely, with a clutch of the
lean hand. "By God! If I had his throat! Even
now I might do something for the world."

He glared at Kipps, his face flushed deep, his
sunken eyes glowing with passion, and then suddenly
he changed altogether.

There was a sound of tea things rattling upon a
tray outside the door, and Sid rose to open it.

"All of which amounts to this," said Masterman,
suddenly quiet and again talking against time. "The
world is out of joint, and there isn't a soul alive who
isn't half waste or more. You'll find it the same
with you in the end, wherever your luck may take
you. ... I suppose you won't mind my having
another cigarette?"

He took Kipps' cigarette with a hand that trembled
so violently it almost missed its object, and stood up,
with something of guilt in his manner as Mrs. Sid
came into the room.

Her eye met his and marked the flush upon his
face.

"Been talking Socialism?" said Mrs. Sid, a httle
severely.

§5

Six o'clock that day found Kipps drifting eastward
along the southward margin of Rotten Row. You

334 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

figure him a small, respectably attired figure going
slowly through a sometimes immensely difficult and
always immense world. At times he becomes pensive
and whistles softly. At times he looks about him.
There are a few riders in the Row, a carriage flashes
by every now and then along the roadway, and among
the great rhododendrons and laurels and upon the
greensward there are a few groups and isolated
people dressed in the style Kipps adopted to call upon
the Walshinghams when first he was engaged. Amid
the complicated confusion of Kipps' mind was a re-
gret that he had not worn his other things. . . .

Presently he perceived that he would like to sit
down ; a green chair tempted him. He hesitated at
it, took possession of it, and leant back and crossed
one leg over the other.

He rubbed his under lip with his umbrella handle
and reflected upon Masterman and his denunciation
of the world.

"Bit orf 'is 'ead, poor chap," said Kipps, and
added: "I wonder."

He thought intently for a space.

"I wonder what he meant by the lean years?"

The world seemed a very solid and prosperous
concern just here, and well out of reach of Master-
man's dying clutch. And yet

It was curious he should have been reminded of
Minton.

His mind turned to a far more important matter.
Just at the end Sid had said to him, "Seen Ann?"

CH. VII LONDON 335

and as he was about to answer, "You'll see a bit more
of her now. She's got a place in Folkestone."

It had brought him baclc from any concern about
the world being out of joint or anything of that
sort.

Ann!

One might run against her any day.

He tugged at his little moustache.

He would lilce to run against Ann very much. . .

"And it would be juiced awkward if I did !"

In Folkestone ! It was a jolly sight too close. . .

Then, at the thought that he might run against
Ann in his beautiful evening dress on the way to the
band, he fluttered into a momentary dream, that
jumped abruptly into a nightmare.

Suppose he met her when he was out with Helen !
"Oh, Lor' !" said Kipps. Life had developed a new
complication that would go on and go on. For some
time he wished with the utmost fervour that he had
not kissed Ann, that he had not gone to New Romney
the second time. Lie marvelled at his amazing for-
getfulness of Helen on that occasion. Helen took
possession of his mind. He would have to write to
Helen, an easy, off-hand letter, to say that he had
come to London for a day or so. He tried to imagine
her reading it. He would write just such another
letter to the old people, and say he had had to come
up on business. That might do for them all right,
but Helen was different. She would insist on ex-
planations.

336 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

He wished he could never go back to Folkestone
again. That would settle the whole affair.

A passing group attracted his attention, two fault-
lessly dressed gentlemen and a radiantly expensive
lady. They were talking, no doubt, very brilliantly.
His eyes followed them. The lady tapped the arm
of the left hand gentleman with a daintily tinted
glove. Swells ! No end.

His soul looked out upon life In general as a very
small nestling might peep out of its nest. What an
extraordinary thing life was, to be sure, and what a
remarkable variety of people there were in it 1

He lit a cigarette and speculated upon that reced-
ing group of three, and blew smoke and watched
them. They seemed to do it all right. Probably
they all had incomes of very much over twelve hun-
dred a year. Perhaps not. Probably none of them
suspected, as they went past, that he, too, was a gen-
tleman of independent means, dressed, as he was,
without distinction. Of course things were easier for
them. They were brought up always to dress well
and do the right thing from their very earliest years;
they started clear of all his perplexities; they had
never got mixed up with all sorts of different people
who didn't go together. If, for example, that lady
there got engaged to that gentleman, she would be
quite safe from any encounter from a corpulent, oscu-
latory TJncle, or Chltterlow, or the dangerously in-
significant eye of Pierce.

His thoughts came round to Helen.

CH. VII LONDON 337

When they were married and Cuyps, or Cuyp —
Coote had failed to justify his "s" — and in that west
end flat and shaken free of all these low class associ-
ations, would he and she parade here of an afternoon
dressed like that ? It would be rather fine to do so.
If one's dress was all right.

Helen I

She was difficult to understand at times.

He blew extensiv^e clouds of cigarette smoke.

There would be teas, there would be dinners, there
would be calls. Of course he would get into the way
of it.

But Anagrams were a bit stiff to begin with 1

It was beastly confusing at first to know when to
use your fork at dinner, and all that. Still

He felt an extraordinary doubt whether he would
get into the way of it. He was interested fcr a space
by a girl and groom on horseback, and then he came
back to his personal preoccupations.

He would have to write to Helen. What could he
say to explain his absence from the Anagram Tea?
She had been pretty clear she wanted him to come.
He recalled her resolute face without any great ten-
derness. He kneiv he would look like a silly ass at
that confounded tea ! Suppose he shirked it and went
back in time for the dinner ! Dinners were beastly
difficult, too, but not as bad as Anagrams. The very
first thing that might happen when he got back to
Folkestone would be to run against Ann. Suppose,
after all, he did meet Ann when he was with Helen I

338 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

What queer encounters were possible in the
world !

Thank goodness, they were going to live in
London !

But that brought him around to Chitterlow. The
Chitterlows were coming to London, too. If they
didn't get money they'd come after It; they weren't
the sort of people to be choked off easily, and if they
did they'd come to London to produce their play.
He tried to imagine some seemly social occasion in-
vaded by Chitterlow and his rhetoric, by his torren-
tial thunder of self-assertion, the whole company flat-
tened thereunder like wheat under a hurricane.

Confound and hang Chitterlow ! Yet, somehow,
somewhen, one would have to settle accounts with
him ! And there was Sid ! Sid was Ann's brother.
He realised with sudden horror the social indiscre-
tion of accepting Sid's invitation to dinner.

Sid wasn't the sort of chap one could snub or cut,
and besides — Ann's brother ! He didn't want to cut
him. It would be worse than cutting Bugglns and
Pierce — a sight worse. And after that lunch!

It would be the next thing to cutting Ann herself.
And even as to Ann I

Suppose he was with Helen or Coote ! . . .

*'Oh, Blow!" he said, at last, and then, viciously,
"Blow!" and so rose and flung away his cigarette end,
and pursued his reluctant, dublating way towards the
really quite uncongenial splendours of the Royal
Grand. . . .

CH. VII LONDON 339

And it is vulgarly imagined that to have money is
to have no troubles at alll

Kipps endured splendour at the Royal Grand Ho-
tel for three nights and days, and then he retreated in
disorder. The Royal Grand defeated and overcame
and routed Kipps, not of intention, but by sheer royal
grandeur, grandeur combined with an organisation
for his comfort carried to excess. On his return he
came upon a difficulty; he had lost his circular piece
of cardboard with the number of his room, and he
drifted about the hall and passages in a state of per-
plexity for some time, until he thought all the porters
and officials in gold lace caps must be watching him
and jesting to one another about him. Finally, in a
quiet corner, down below the hairdresser's shop, he
found a kindly looking personage in bottle green, to
whom he broached his difficulty. "I say," he said,
with a pleasant smile, "I can't find my room nohow."
The personage in bottle green, instead of laughing
in a nasty way, as he might well have done, became
extremely helpful, showed Kipps what to do, got his
key, and conducted him by lift and passage to his
chamber. Kipps tipped him half a crown.

Safe In his room, Kipps pulled himself together for
dinner. He had learnt enough from young Walsh-
Ingham to bring his dress clothes, and now he began

340 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

to assume them. Unfortunately, in the excitement of
his flight from his Aunt and Uncle, he had forgot-
ten to put in his other boots, and he was some time
deciding between his purple cloth slippers, with a
golden marigold, and the prospect of cleaning the
boots he was wearing with the towel, but finally, be-
ing a little footsore, he took the slippers.

Afterwards, when he saw the porters and waiters
and the other guests catch a sight of the slippers, he
was sorry he had not chosen the boots. However, to
make up for any want of style at that end, he had his
crush hat under his arm.

He found the dining-room without excessive
trouble. It was a vast and splendidly decorated place,
and a number of people, evidently quite au fait, were
dining there at little tables lit with electric, red shaded
candles, gentlemen in evening dress, and ladies with
dazzling, astonishing necks. Kipps had never seen
evening dress in full vigour before, and he doubted
his eyes. And there were also people not in evening
dress who, no doubt, wondered what noble family
Kipps represented. There was a band in a decorated
recess, and the band looked collectively at the purple
slippers, and so lost any chance they may have had
of a collection, so far as Kipps was concerned. The
chief drawback to this magnificent place was the ex-
cessive space of floor that had to be crossed before
you got your purple slippers hid in under a table.

He selected a little table — not the one where a
rather impudent looking waiter held a chair, but an-

CH. VII LONDON 341

other — sat down, and finding his gibus in his hand,
decided after a moment of thought to rise slightly and
sit on it. (It was discovered in his abandoned chair
at a late hour by a supper party, and restored to him
next day.)

He put the napkin carefully on one side, selected
his soup without difficulty, *'Clear, please," but he
was rather floored by the presentation of a quite splen-
didly bound wine card. He turned it over, discovered
a section devoted to whiskey, and had a bright idea.

" 'Ere," he said to the waiter, with an encouraging
movement of his head, and then in a confidential man-
ner, "you haven't any Old Methuselah Three Stars,
ave you .''

The waiter went away to enquire, and Kipps went
on with his soup with an enhanced self-respect. Fin-
ally, Old Methuselah being unobtainable, he ordered
a claret from about the middle of the list. "Let's
'ave some of this," he said. He knew claret was a
good sort of wine.

"A half bottle?" said the waiter.

"Right you are," said Kipps.

He felt he was getting on. He leant back after
his soup, a man of the world, and then slowly brought
his eyes around to the ladies in evening dress on his
right.

He couldn't have thought It!

They were scorchers. Jest a bit of black velvet
over the shoulders !

He looked again. One of them was laughing with

342 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

a glass of wine half raised — wicked-looking woman
she was — the other, the black velvet one, was eating
bits of bread with nervous quickness and talking fast.

He wished old Buggins could see them.

He found a waiter regarding him and blushed
deeply. He did not look again for some time, and
became confused about his knife and fork over the
fish. Presently he remarked a lady in pink to the left
of him eating the fish with an entirely different imple-
ment.

It was over the vol au vent that he began to go to
pieces. He took a knife to it; then saw the lady in
pink was using a fork only, and hastily put down his
knife, with a considerable amount of rich creaminess
on the blade, upon the cloth. Then he found that
a fork in his inexperienced hand was an instrument
of chase rather than capture. His ears became vio-
lently red, and then he looked up, to discover the lady
in pink glancing at him and then smiling as she spoke
to the man beside her.

He hated the lady in pink very much.

He stabbed a large piece of the vol au vent at last,
and was too glad of his luck not to take a mouthful
of it. But it was an extensive fragment, and pieces
escaped him. Shirt front! "Desh it!" he said, and
had resort to his spoon. His waiter went and spoke
to two other waiters, no doubt jeering at him. He
became very fierce suddenly. "Ere!" he said, ges-
ticulating, and then, "clear this away !"

The entire dinner party on his right, the party of

en. VII LONDON 343

the ladles In advanced evening dress, looked at him.
He felt that everyone was watching him
and making fun of him, and the injustice of this an-
gered him. After all, they had every advantage he
hadn't. And then, when they got him there doing
his best, what must they do but glance and sneer and
nudge one another. He tried to catch them at it, and
then took refuge In a second glass of wine.

Suddenly and extraordinarily he found himself a
socialist. He did not care how close it was to the lean
years when all these things would end.

Mutton came with peas. He arrested the hand of
the waiter. "No peas," he said. He knew some-
thing of the difficulty and danger of eating peas.
Then, when the peas went away again he was em-
bittered again. . . . Echoes of Masterman's
burning rhetoric began to reverbrate In his mind.
Nice lot of people these were to laugh at anyone!
Women half undressed. It was that made him so
beastly uncomfortable. How could one eat one's
dinner with people about him like that? Nice lot
they were. He was glad he wasn't one of them, any-
how. Yes, they might look. He resolved If they
looked at him again he would ask one of the men
who he was staring at. His perturbed and angry
face would have concerned anyone. The band by
an unfortunate accident was playing truculent military
music. The mental change Kipps underwent was. In
its way, what psychologists call a conversion. In a
few moments all Kipps' Ideals were changed. He

344 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

who had been "practically a gentleman," the sedulous
pupil of Coote, the punctilious raiser of hats, was in-
stantly a rebel, an outcast, the hater of everything
"stuck up," the foe of Society and the social order of
to-day. Here they were among the profits of their
robbery, these people who might do anything with
the world.

"No, thenks," he said to a dish.

He addressed a scornful eye at the shoulders of
the lady to his left.

Presently he was refusing another dish. He didn't
like it — fussed up food! Probably cooked by some
foreigner. He finished up his wine and his bread.

"No, thenks."

"No, thenks." . . .

He discovered the eye of a diner fixed curiously
upon his flushed face. He responded with a glare.
Couldn't he go without things if he liked?

"What's this?" said Kipps to a great green cone.

"Ice," said the waiter.

"I'll 'ave some," said Kipps.

He seized a fork and spoon and assailed the bombe.
It cut rather stiffly. "Come up!" said Kipps, with
concentrated bitterness, and the truncated summit of
the bombe flew off suddenly, travelling eastw^ard with
remarkable velocity. Flop, it went upon the floor a
yard away, and for awhile time seemed empty.

At the adjacent table they were laughing together.

Shv the rest of the bombe at them ?

Flight?

CH. VII LONDON 345

At any rate a dignified withdrawal.

"No!" said Kipps, "no more," arresting the po-
lite attempt of the waiter to serve him with another
piece. He had a vague idea he might carry off the
affair as though he had meant the ice to go on the
floor — not liking ice, for example, and being annoyed
at the badness of his dinner. He put both hands on
the table, thrust back his chair, disengaged a purple
slipper from his napkin, and rose. He stepped care-
fully over the prostrate ice, kicked the napkin under
the table, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and
marched out — shaking the dust of the place, as it
were, from his feet. He left behind him a melting
fragment of ice upon the floor, his gibus hat, warm
and compressed in his chair, and in addition every
social ambition he had ever entertained in the world.

§7

Kipps went back to Folkestone in time for the Ana-
gram Tea. But you must not imagine that the change
of heart that came to him in the dining-room of the
Royal Grand Hotel involved any change of attitude
toward this promised social and intellectual treat. He
went back because the Royal Grand was too much
for him.

Outwardly calm, or at most a little flushed and
ruffled, inwardly Kipps was a horrible, tormented
battleground of scruples, doubts, shames and self-as-
sertions during that three days of silent, desperate

346 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

grappling with the big hotel. He did not intend the
monstrosity should beat him without a struggle, but
at last he had sullenly to admit himself overcome.
The odds were terrific. On the one hand himself —
with, among other things, only one pair of boots;
on the other a vast wilderness of rooms, covering
several acres, and with over a thousand people, staff
and visitors, all chiefly occupied in looking queerly
at Kipps, in laughing at him behind his back, in
watching for difficult corners at which to confront
and perplex him, and inflict humiliations upon him.
For example, the hotel scored over its electric light.
After the dinner the chambermaid, a hard, unsympa-
thetic young woman with a superior manner, was
summoned by a bell Kipps had rung under the im-
pression the button was the electric light switch.
"Look 'ere," said Kipps, rubbing a shin that had suf-
fered during his search in the dark, "why aren't there
any candles or matches?" The hotel explained and
scored heavily.

"It isn't everyone is up to these things," said
Kipps.

"No, it isn't," said the chambermaid, with ill-con-
cealed scorn, and slammed the door at him.

"S'pose I ought to have tipped her," said Kipps.

After that Kipps cleaned his boots with a pocket-
handkerchief and went for a long walk and got home
in a hansom, but the hotel scored again by his not
putting out his boots and so having to clean them
again in the morning. The hotel also snubbed him

CH. vii LONDON 347

by bringing him hot water when he was fully dressed
and looking surprised at his collar, but he got a break-
fast, I must admit, with scarcely any difficulty.

After that the hotel scored heavily by the fact that
there are twenty-four hours in the day and Kipps
had nothing to do in any of them. He was a little
footsore from his previous day's pedestrianism, and
he could make up his mind for no long excursions.
He flitted in and out of the hotel several times, and
it was the polite porter who touched his hat every
time that first set Kipps tipping.

"What 'e wants is a tip," said Kipps.

So at the next opportunity he gave the man an un-
expected shilling, and having once put his hand in
his pocket, there was no reason why he should not
go on. He bought a newspaper at the book-stall and
tipped the boy the rest of the shilling, and then went
up by the lift and tipped the man a sixpence, leaving
his newspaper inadvertently in the lift. He met his
chambermaid in the passage and gave her half a
crown. He resolved to demonstrate his position to
the entire establishment in this way. He didn't like
the place; he disapproved of it politically, socially,
morally, but he resolved no taint of meanness should
disfigure his sojourn in its luxurious halls. He went
down by the lift (tipping again), and, being accosted
by a waiter with his gibus, tipped the finder half a
crown. He had a vague sense that he was making a
flank movement upon the hotel and buying over its
staff. They would regard him as a character. They

348 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

would get to like him. He found his stock of small
silver diminishing, and replenished it at a desk in the
hall. He tipped a man in bottle green who looked
like the man who had shown him his room the day
before, and then he saw a visitor eyeing him, and
doubted whether he was in this instance doing right.
Finally he went out and took chance 'buses to their
destinations, and wandered a little in remote, wonder-
ful suburbs and returned. He lunched at a chop
house in Islington, and found himself back in the
Royal Grand, now unmistakably footsore and London
weary, about three. He was drawn towards the
drawing-room by a neat placard about afternoon tea.

It occurred to him that the campaign of tipping
upon which he had embarked was perhaps after all a
mistake. He was confirmed in this by observing that
the hotel officials were watching him, not respectfully,
but with a sort of amused wonder, as if to see whom
he would tip next. However, if he backed out now,
they would think him an awful fool. Everyone wasn't
so rich as he was. It was his way to tip. Still

He grew more certain the hotel had scored again.

He pretended to be lost in thought and so drifted
by, and having put hat and umbrella in the cloak-
room went into the drawing-room for afternoon tea.

There he did get what for a time he held to be a
point in his favour. The room was large and quiet
at first, and he sat back restfully until it occurred to
him that his attitude brought his extremely dusty
boots too prominently into the light, so instead he sat

CH. VII LONDON 349

up, and then people of the upper and upper middle
classes began to come and group themselves about
him and have tea likewise, and so revive the class
animosities of the previous day.

Presently a fluffy, fair-haired lady came into promi-
nent existence a few yards away. She was talking to
a respectful, low-voiced clergyman, whom she was
possibly entertaining at tea. "No," she said, "dear
Lady Jane wouldn't like that!"

"Mumble, mumble, mumble," from the clergyman.

"Poor dear Lady Jane was always so sensitive,"
the voice of the lady sang out clear and emphatic.

A fat, hairless, important-looking man joined this
group, took a chair and planted it firmly with its back
in the face of Kipps, a thing that offended Kipps
mightily. "Are you telling him," gurgled the fat,
hairless man, "about dear Lady Jane's affliction ?" A
young couple, lady brilliantly attired and the man in
a magnificently cut frock coat, arranged themselves to
the right, also with an air of exclusion towards Kipps.
"I've told him," said the gentleman in a flat, abun-
dant voice. "My!" said the young lady, with an
American smile. No doubt they all thought Kipps
was out of it. A great desire to assert himself in some
way surged up in his heart. He felt he would like to
cut In on the conversation in some dramatic way. A
monologue something in the manner of Masterman?
At any rate, abandoning that as impossible, he would
like to appear self-centred and at ease. His eyes,
wandering over the black surfaces of a noble archi-

350 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

tectural mass close by, discovered a slot — an enam-
eled plaque of directions.

It was some sort of musical box! As a matter of
fact, it was the very best sort of Harmonicon and
specially made to the scale of the Hotel.

He scrutinised the plaque with his head at various
angles and glanced about him at his neighbours.

It occurred to Kipps that he would like some music,
that to inaugurate some would show him a man of
taste and at his ease at the same time. He rose, read
over a list of tunes, selected one haphazard, pressed
his sixpence — it was sixpence ! — home, and prepared
for a confidential, refined little melody.

Considering the high social tone of the Royal
Grand, it was really a very loud instrument indeed.
It gave vent to three deafening brays and so burst the
dam of silence that had long pent it in. It seemed to
be chiefly full of the greatuncles of trumpets, megalo-
trombones and railway brakes. It made sounds like
shunting trains. It did not so much begin as blow
up your counter-scarp or rush forward to storm under
cover of melodious shrapnel. It had not so much an
air as a ricochette. The music had, in short, the in-
imitable quality of Sousa. It swept down upon the
friend of Lady Jane and carried away something so-
cially striking into the eternal night of the unheard;
the American girl to the left of it was borne shrieking
into the inaudible. "HiGii cockalorum Tootletootle
tootle loo. High cockalorum tootle lootle loo. Bump,
bump, bump — BUMP." Joyous, exorbitant music it

CH. VII LONDON 351

was from the gigantic nursery of the Future, bear-
ing the hearer along upon its torrential succession of
sounds, as if he was in a cask on Niagara. Whiroo!
Yah and have at you ! The strenuous Life ! Yaha !
Stop! A Reprieve! A Reprieve! No! Bang!
Bump!

Everybody looked around, conversation ceased and
gave place to gestures.

The friend of Lady Jane became terribly agitated.

"Can't it be stopped?" she vociferated, pointing a
gloved finger and saying something to the waiter
about "That dreadful young man."

"Ought not to be working," said the clerical friend
of Lady Jane.

The waiter shook his head at the fat, hairless gen-
tleman. People began to move away. Kipps leant
back luxurious, and then tipped with a half crown to
pay. He paid, tipped like a gentleman, rose with an
easy gesture, and strolled towards the door. His
retreat evidently completed the indignation of the
friend of Lady Jane, and from the door he could still
discern her gestures as asking, "Can't it be stopped?"
The music followed him into the passage and pursued
him to the lift and only died away completely in the
quiet of his own room, and afterwards from his win-
dow he saw the friend of Lady Jane and her party
having their tea carried out to a little table in the
court. Bump, bump, bump, bump floated up to him,
and certainly that was a point to him. But it was his
only score ; all the rest of the game lay in the hands of

352 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

the upper classes and the big hotel. And presently he
was doubting whether even this was really a point. It
seemed a trifle vulgar, come to think it over, to inter-
rupt people when they were talking.

He saw a clerk peering at him from the office, and
suddenly it occurred to him that the place might get
back at him tremendously over the bill.

They would probably take it out of him by charg-
ing pounds and pounds.

Suppose they charged more than he hadl

The clerk had a particularly nasty face, just the
face to take advantage of a vacillating Kipps.

He became aware of a man in a cap touching it,
and produced his shilling automatically, but the strain
was beginning to tell. It was a deuce and all of an
expense — this tipping.

If the hotel chose to stick it on to the bill something
tremendous what was Kipps to do? Refuse to pay?
Make a row?

If he did he couldn't fight all these men in bottle
green.

He went out about seven and walked for a long
time and dined at last upon a chop in the Euston
Road; then he walked along to the Edgeware Road
and sat and rested in the Metropolitan Music Hall
for a time until a trapeze performance unnerved him
and finally he came back to bed. He tipped the lift
man sixpence and wished him good-night. In the
silent watches of the night he reviewed the tale of the
day's tipping, went over the horrors of the previous

CH. VII LONDON 353

night's dinner, and heard again the triumphant bray
of the harmonicon devil released from its long im-
prisonment. Everyone would be told about him to-
morrow. He couldn't go on ! He admitted his de-
feat. Never in their whole lives had any of these
people seen such a Fool as he ! Ugh ! . . .

His method of announcing his withdrawal to the
clerk was touched with bitterness.

"I'm going to get out of this," said Kipps, blowing
windily. "Let's see what you got on my bill."

"One breakfast?" asked the clerk.

"Do I /ooife as if I'd ate two?" . . .

At his departure Kipps, with a hot face, convulsive
gestures and an embittered heart, tipped everyone
who did not promptly and actively resist, including an
absent-minded South African diamond merchant, who
was waiting in the hall for his wife and succumbed to
old habit. He paid his cabman a four shilling piece
at Charing Cross, having no smaller change, and
wished he could burn him alive. Then in a sudden
reaction of economy he refused the proffered help of
a porter and carried his bag quite violently to the
train.

CHAPTER VIII

KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY
§1

Submission to Inexorable Fate took Klpps to the
Anagram Tea.

At any rate he would meet Helen there in the pres-
ence of other people and be able to carry off the worst
of the difficulty of explaining his little jaunt to Lon-
don. He had not seen her since his last portentous
visit to New Romney. He was engaged to her, he
would have to marry her, and the sooner he faced her
again the better. Before wild plans of turning social-
ist, defying the world and repudiating all calling for
ever, his heart on second thoughts sank. He felt
Helen would never permit anything of the sort. As
for the Anagrams he could do no more than his best
and that he was resolved to do. What had happened
at the Royal Grand, what had happened at New
Romney, he must bury in his memory and begin again
at the reconstruction of his social position. Ann, Bug-
gins, Chitterlow, all these, seen in the matter-of-fact
light of the Folkestone train, stood just as they
stood before; people of an inferior social position

J54

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 355

who had to be eliminated from his world. It was
a bother about Ann, a bother and a pity. His mind
rested so for a space on Ann until the memory of
these Anagrams drew him away. If he could see
Coote that evening he might, he thought, be able to
arrange some sort of connivance about the Anagrams,
and his mind was chiefly busy sketching proposals for
such an arrangement. It would not, of course, be
ungentlemanly cheating, but only a little mystification.
Coote very probably might drop him a hint of the
solution of one or two of the things, not enough to
win a prize, but enough to cover his shame. Or fail-
ing that he might take a humorous, quizzical line and
pretend he was pretending to be very stupid. There
were plenty of ways out of it if one kept a sharp look-
out.

The costume Kipps wore to the Anagram Tea was
designed as a compromise between the strict letter of
high fashion and seaside laxity, a sort of easy, semi-
state for afternoon. Helen's first reproof had always
lingered in his mind. He wore a frock coat, but miti-
gated it by a Panama hat of romantic shape with a
black band, grey gloves, but for relaxation brown
button boots. The only other man besides the clergy
present, a new doctor with an attractive wife, was in
full afternoon dress. Coote was not there.

Kipps was a little pale, but quite self-possessed, as
he approached Mrs. Bindon Botting's door. He took
a turn while some people went in and then faced it
manfully. The door opened and revealed — Ann I

356 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

In the background through a draped doorway be-
hind a big fern in a great art pot the elder Miss Dot-
ting was visible talking to two guests; the auditory
background was a froth of feminine voices.

Our two young people were much too amazed to
give one another any formula of greeting, though
they had parted warmly enough. Each was already
in a state of extreme tension to meet the demands of
this great and unprecedented occasion of an Anagram
Tea. "Lor' !" said Ann, her sole remark, and then
the sense of Miss Botting's eye ruled her straight
again. She became very pale, but she took his hat
mechanically, and he was already removing his
gloves. "Ann," he said in a low tone, and then
"Fency!" The eldest Miss Dotting knew Kipps was
the sort of guest who requires nursing, and she came
forward vocalising charm. She said it was "Awfully
jolly of him to come, awfully jolly. It was awfully
difficult to get any good men !"

She handed Kipps forward, mumbling in a dazed
condition, to the drawing-room, and there he encoun-
tered Helen looking unfamiliar in an unfamiliar hat.
It was as if he had not met her for years.

She astonished him. She didn't seem to mind in the
least his going to London. She held out a shapely
hand, and smiled encouragingly. "You've faced the
anagrams?" she said.

The second Miss Dotting accosted them, a number
of oblong pieces of paper in her hand, mysteriously
inscribed. "Take an anagram," she said; "take an

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 357

anagram," and boldly pinned one of these brief docu-
ments to Kipps' lapel. The letters were "Cypshi,"
and Kipps from the very beginning suspected this was
an anagram for Cuyps. She also left a thing like a
long dance programme, from which dangled a little
pencil in his hand. He found himself being intro-
duced to people, and then he was in a corner with the
short lady in a big bonnet, who was pelting him with
gritty little bits of small talk that were gone before
you could take hold of them and reply.

"Very hot," said this lady. "Very hot, indeed — hot
all the summer — remarkable year — all the years re-
markable now; — don't know what we're coming to —
don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?"

"Oo rather," said Kipps, and wondered if Ann was
still in the hall. Ann !

He ought not to have stared at her like a stuck fish
and pretended not to know her. That couldn't be
right. But what was right ?

The lady in the big bonnet proceeded to a second
discharge. "Hope you're fond of anagrams, Mr.
Kipps — difficult exercise — still one must do some-
thing to bring people together — better than Ludo
anyhow. Don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?"

Ann fluttered past the open door. Her eyes met
his in amazed enquiry. Something had got dislocated
in the world for both of them.

He ought to have told her he was engaged. He
ought to have explained things to her. Perhaps even
now he might be able to drop her a hint.

358 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"Don't you think so, Mr. Kipps?"

*'Oo rather," said Kipps for the third time.

A lady with a tired smile, who was labelled con-
spicuously "Wogdelenk," drifted towards Kipps' In-
terlocutor and the two fell into conversation, Kipps
found himself socially aground. He looked about
him. Helen was talking to a curate and laughing.
Kipps was overcome by a vague desire to speak to
Ann. He was for sidling doorward.

"What are you, please?" said an extraordinarily
bold, tall girl, and arrested him while she took down
"Cypshi."

"I'm sure I don't know what it means," she ex-
plained. "I'm Sir Bubh. Don't you think anagrams
are something chronic?"

Kipps made stockish noises, and the young lady
suddenly became the nucleus of a party of excited
friends who were forming a syndicate to guess, and
barred his escape. She took no further notice of him.
He found himself jammed against an occasional table
and listening to the conversation of Mrs. "Wogde-
lenk" and his lady with the big bonnet.

"She packed her two beauties off together," said
the lady in the big bonnet. "Time enough, too. Don't
think much of this girl; she's got as housemaid now.
Pretty, of course, but there's no occasion for a house-
maid to be pretty — none whatever. And she doesn't
look particularly up to her work either. Kind of
'mazed expression."

"You never can tell," said the lady labelled "Wog-

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 359

delenk;" "you never can tell. My wretches are big
enough, Heaven knows, and do they work? Not a
bit of it!" . . .

Kipps felt dreadfully out of it with regard to all
these people, and dreadfully in it with Ann.

He scanned the back of the big bonnet and con-
cluded it was an extremely ugly bonnet indeed. It got
jerking forward as each short, dry sentence was
snapped off at the end and a plume of osprey on it
jerked excessiv^ely. "She hasn't guessed even one!"
followed by a shriek of girlish merriment, came from
the group about the tall, bold girl. They'd shriek at
him presently, perhaps. Beyond thinking his own
anagram might be Cuyps, he hadn't a notion. What
a chatter they were all making! It was just like a
summer sale ! Just the sort of people who'd give a
lot of trouble and swap you ! And suddenly the
smouldering fires of rebellion leapt to flame again.
These were a rotten lot of people, and the anagrams
were rotten nonsense, and he, Kipps, had been a rot-
ten fool to come. There was Helen away there, still
laughing, with her curate. Pity she couldn't marry a
curate and leave him ( Kipps) alone ! Then he'd know
what to do. He disliked the whole gathering collec-
tively and in detail. Why were they all trying to make
him one of themselves? He perceived unexpected
ugliness everywhere about him. There were two great
pins jabbed through the tall girl's hat, and the swirls
of her hair below the brim with the minutest piece of
tape tie-up showing did not repay close examination.

36o MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Mrs. "Wogdelenk" wore a sort of mumps bandage
of lace, and there was another lady perfectly dazzling
with beads, and jewels and bits of trimming. They
were all flaps and angles and flounces — these women.
Not one of them looked as neat and decent a shape as
Ann's clean, trim, little figure. Echoes of Masterman
woke up in him again. Ladies indeed! Here were all
these chattering people, with money, with leisure,
with every chance in the world, and all they could do
was to crowd like this into a couple of rooms and jab-
ber nonsense about anagrams.

"Could Cypshi really mean Cuyps?" floated like a
dissolving wreath of mist across his mind.

Abruptly resolution stood armed in his heart. He
was going to get out of this 1

" 'Scuse me," he said, and began to wade neck deep
through the bubbling tea party.

He was going to get out of it all !

He found himself close by Helen. "I'm orf," he
said, but she gave him the briefest glance. She did
not appear to hear him. "Still, Mr. Spratlingdown,
you must admit there's a limit even to conformity,"
she was saying.

He was in a curtained archway, and Ann was be-
fore him carrying a tray supporting several small
sugar bowls.

He was moved to speech. "What a Lot!" he said,
and then mysteriously, "I'm engaged to her." He
indicated Helen's new hat, and became aware of a
skirt he had stepped upon.

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 361

Ann stared at him helplessly, borne past in the grip
of incomprehensible imperatives.

Why shouldn't they talk together?

He was in a small room, and then at the foot of the
staircase in the hall. He heard the rustle of a dress,
and what was conceivable his hostess was upon him.

"But you're not going, Mr. Kipps?" she said.

"I must," he said; "I got to."

*'But, Mr. Kipps!"

"I must," he said. "I'm not well."

"But before the guessing ! Without any tea 1"

Ann appeared and hovered behind him.

"I got to go," said Kipps.

If he parleyed with her Helen might awake to his
desperate attempt.

"Of course if you must go."

"It's something I've forgotten," said Kipps, begin-
ning to feel regrets. "Reely I must."

Mrs. Botting turned with a certain offended dig-
nity, and Ann in a state of flushed calm that evidently
concealed much came forward to open the door.

"I'm very sorry," he said; "I'm very sorry," half
to his hostess and half to her, and was swept past her
by superior social forces — like a drowning man in a
mill-race — and into the Upper Sandgate Road. He
half turned upon the step, and then slam went the
door. . . .

He retreated along the Leas, a thing of shame and
perplexity — Mrs. Botting's aggrieved astonishment
uppermost in his mind. . . ,

362 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

Something — reinforced by the glances of the peo-
ple he was passing — pressed its way to his attention
through the tumultuous disorder of his mind.

He became aware that he was still wearing his
little placard with the letters "Cypshi."

"Desh it!" he said, clutching off this abomination.
In another moment its several letters, their task ac-
complished, were scattering gleefully before the
breeze down the front of the Leas.

§2

Kipps was dressed for Mrs. Wace's dinner half an
hour before it was time to start, and he sat waiting
until Coote should come to take him around. "Man-
ners and Rules of Good Society" lay before him neg-
lected. He had read the polished prose of the Mem-
ber of the Aristocracy, on page 96, as far as —

"the acceptance of an invitation is in the eyes of
"diners out, a binding obligation which only ill-
"health, family bereavement, or some all-important
"reason justifies its being set on one side or other-
"wise evaded" —

and then he had lapsed into gloomy thoughts.

That afternoon he had had a serious talk with
Helen.

He had tried to express something of the change of
heart that had happened to him. But to broach the
real state of the matter had been altogether too terri-

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 363

ble for him. He had sought a minor issue. *T don't
like all this Seciety," he had said.

"But you must see people," said Helen.

"Yes, but . It's the sort of people you see.'*

He nerved himself. "I didn't think much of that lot
at the Enegram Tea."

"You have to see all sorts of people if you want to
see the world," said Helen.

Kipps was silent for a space and a little short of
breath.

"My dear Arthur," she began, almost kindly, "I
shouldn't ask you to go to these affairs If I didn't
think it good for you, should I?"

Kipps acquiesced in silence.

"You will find the benefit of it all when we get to
London. You learn to swim in a tank before you go
out into the sea. These people here are good enough
to learn upon. They're stiff and rather silly and dread-
fully narrow and not an idea in a dozen of them, but
it really doesn't matter at all. You'll soon get Savoir
Faire."

He made to speak again, and found his powers of
verbal expression lacking. Instead he blew a sigh.

"You'll get used to It all very soon," said Helen
helpfully. . . .

As he sat meditating over that Interview and over
the vistas of London that opened before him, on the
little flat, and teas and occasions and the constant
presence of Brudderklns and all the bright prospect
of his new and better life, and how he would never

364 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

see Ann any more, the housemaid entered with a little
package, a small, square envelope to "Arthur Kipps,
Esquire."

"A young woman left this. Sir," said the house-
maid, a little severely.

"Eh?" said Kipps; "what young woman?" and
then suddenly began to understand.

"She looked an ordinary young woman," said the
housemaid coldly.

"Ah !" said Kipps. ''That's orlright."

He waited till the door had closed behind the girl,
staring at the envelope in his hand, and then, with a
curious feeling of increasing tension, tore it open. As
he did so, some quicker sense than sight or touch told
him its contents. It was Ann's half sixpence. And,
besides, not a word !

Then she must have heard him !

She had kept the half sixpence all these years!

He was standing with the envelope in his hand, try-
ing to get on from that last inference, when Coote be-
came audible without.

Coote appeared in evening dress, a clean and radi-
ant Coote, with large, greenish, white gloves and a
particularly large white tie, edged with black. "For
a third cousin," he presently explained. "Nace, isn't
it?" He could see Kipps was pale and disturbed and
put this down to the approaching social trial. "You
keep your nerve up, Kipps, my dear chap, and you'll
be all right," said Coote, with a big, brotherly glove
on Kipps' sleeve.

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 365 ,

§3

The dinner came to a crisis so far as Kipps' emo-
tions were concerned, with Mrs. Bindon Botting's
talk about servants, but before that there had been
several things of greater or smaller magnitude to per-
turb and disarrange his social front. One little mat-
ter that was mildly insurgent throughout the entire
meal was. If I may be permitted to mention so inti-
mate a matter, the behaviour of his left brace. The
webbing — which was of a cheerful scarlet silk — had
slipped away from Its buckle, fastened no doubt in
agitation, and had developed a strong tendency to
place Itself obliquely in the manner rather of an offi-
cial decoration, athwart his spotless front. It first
asserted Itself before they went in to dinner. He re-
placed this ornament by a dexterous thrust when no
one was looking and thereafter the suppression of his
novel Innovation upon the stereotyped sombreness of
evening dress became a standing preoccupation. On
the whole, he was Inclined to think his first horror
excessive; at any rate no one remarked upon It. How-
ever you Imagine him constantly throughout the even-
ing, with one eye and one hand, whatever the rest of
him might be doing, predominantly concerned with
the weak corner.

But this, I say, was a little matter. What exercised
him much more was to discover Helen quite terribly
in evening dress.

366 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

The young lady had let her imagination rove Lon-
donward, and this costume was perhaps an anticipa-
tion of that clever little flat not too far west which
was to become the centre of so delightful a literary
and artistic set. It was, of all the feminine costumes
present, most distinctly an evening dress. One was
advised Miss Walshingham had arms and shoulders
of a type by no means despicable, one was advised
Miss Walshingham was capable not only of dignity
but charm, even a certain glow of charm. It was, you
know, her first evening dress, a tribute paid by Walsh-
ingham finance to her brightening future. Had she
wanted keeping in countenance, she would have had
to have fallen back upon her hostess, who was resplen-
dent in black and steel. The other ladies had to a
certain extent compromised. Mrs. Walshingham had
dressed with just a refined, little V and Mrs. Bindon
Dotting, except for her dear mottled arms, confided
scarcely more of her plump charm to the world. The
elder Miss Botting stopped short of shoulders, and so
did Miss Ware. But Helen didn't. She was — had
Kipps had eyes to see it — a quite beautiful human
figure; she knew it and she met him with a radiant
smile that had forgotten all the little difference of the
afternoon. But to Kipps her appearance was the last
release. With that, she had become as remote, as for-
eign, as incredible as a wife and mate, as though the
Cnidian Venus herself, in all her simple elegance, was
before witnesses, declared to be his. If, indeed, she
had ever been credible as a wife and mate.

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 367

She ascribed his confusion to modest reverence, and
having blazed smiling upon him for a moment turned
a shapely shoulder towards him and exchanged a re-
mark with Mrs. Bindon Dotting. Ann's poor little
half sixpence came against Kipps' fingers in his pocket
and he clutched at it suddenly as though it was a talis-
man. Then he abandoned it to suppress his Order of
the Brace. He was affected by a cough. "Miss Wace
tells me Mr. Revel is coming," Mrs. Botting was say-
ing.

"Isn't it delightful?" said Helen. "We saw him
last night. He's stopped on his way to Paris. He's
going to meet his wife there."

Kipps' eyes rested for a moment on Helen's daz-
zling deltoid, and then went enquiringly, accusingly
almost to Coote's face. Where, in the presence of this
terrible emergency, was the gospel of suppression
now — that Furtive treatment of Religion and Poli-
tics, and Birth and Death and Bathing and Babies,
and "all those things" which constitutes your True
Gentleman? He had been too modest even to discuss
this question with his Mentor, but surely, surely this
quintessence of all that is good and nice could regard
these unsolicited confidences only in one way. With
something betv/een relief and the confirmation of his
worst fears he perceived, by a sort of twitching of the
exceptionally abundant muscles about Coote's lower
jaw, in a certain deliberate avoidance of one particu-
lar direction by these pale, but resolute, grey eyes, by
the almost convulsive grip of the ample, greenish

368 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

white gloves behind him, a grip broken at tihies for
controlling pats at the black-bordered tie and the back
of that spacious head, and by a slight but increasing
disposition to cough, that Coote did not approve!

To Kipps Helen had once supplied a delicately
beautiful dream, a thing of romance and unsubstan-
tial mystery. But this was her final materialisation,
and the last thin wreath of glamour about her was
dispelled. In some way (he had forgotten how and it
was perfectly incomprehensible) he was bound to this
dark, solid and determined young person whose
shadow and suggestion he had once loved. He had to
go through with the thing as a gentleman should.
Still

And when he was sacrificing Ann !

He wouldn't stand this sort of thing, whatever else
he stood. . . . Should he say something about
her dress to her — to-morrow?

He could put his foot down firmly. He could say,
"Look 'ere. I don't care. I ain't going to stand it.
See?"

She'd say something unexpected, of course. She
always did say something unexpected.

Suppose for once he overrode what she said? Sim-
ply repeated his point?

He found these thoughts battling with certain con-
versational aggressions from Mrs. Wace, and then
Revel arrived and took the centre of the stage.

The author of that brilliant romance, "Red Hearts
a-Beating," was a less imposing man than Kipps had

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 369

anticipated, but he speedily effaced that disappoint-
ment by his predominating manners. Although he
lived habitually in the vivid world of London, his col-
lar and tie wiere In no way remarkable, and he was
neither brilliantly handsome nor curly nor long-
haired. His personal appearance suggested arm
chairs, rather than the equestrian exercises and amor-
ous toylngs and passionate intensities of his master-
piece; he was inclined to be fat, with whitish flesh,
muddy coloured straight hair, he had a rather shape-
less and truncated nose and his chin was asymmetri-
cal. One eye was more inclined to stare than the
other. He might have been esteemed a little undis-
tinguished looking were it not for his beeswaxed
moustache, which came amidst his features with a
pleasing note of incongruity, and the whimsical wrin-
kles above and about his greater eye. His regard
sought and found Helen's as he entered the room and
the.y shook hands presently with an air of intimacy
Kipps, for no clear reason, found objectionable. He
saW them clasp their hands, heard Coote's character-
istic cough — a sound rather more like a very, very old
sheep, a quarter of a mile away, being blown to pieces
by a small charge of gunpowder than anything else in
the world — did some confused beginnings of a
thought, and then they were all going in to dinner and
Helen's shining bare arm lay along his sleeve. Kipps
was in no state for conversation. She glanced at him,
and, though he did not know it, very slightly pressed
his elbow. He struggled with strange respiratory dis-

370 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

locations. Before them went Coote, discoursing in
amiable reverberations to Mrs. Walshingham, and at
the head of the procession was Mrs. Bindon Botting
talking fast and brightly beside the erect military fig-
ure of little Mr. Wace. (He was not a soldier really,
but he had caught a martinet bearing by living so
close to Shorncliffe.) RcacI came last, in charge of
Mrs. Wace's queenly black and steel, politely admir-
ing in a flute-like cultivated voice the mellow wall
paper of the staircase. Kipps marvelled at every-
body's self-possession.

From the earliest spoonful of soup it became evi-
dent that Revel considered himself responsible for the
table talk. And before the soup was over it was al-
most as manifest that Mrs. Bindon Botting inclined
to consider his sense of responsibility excessive. In
her circle Mrs. Bindon Botting was esteemed an
agreeable rattle, her manner and appearance were
conspicuously vivacious. for one so plump, and she had
an almost Irish facility for humorous description.
She would keep people amused all through an after-
noon call, with the story of how her jobbing gardener
had got himself married and what his home was like,
or how her favourite butt, Mr. Stigson Warder, had
all his unfortunate children taught almost every con-
ceivable instrument because they had the phrenologi-
cal bump of music abnormally large. "They got to
trombones, my dear!" she would say, with her voice
coming to a climax. Usually her friends conspired to
draw her out, but on this occasion they neglected to

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 37 1

do so, a thing that mihtated against her keen desire
to shine in Revel's eyes. After a time she perceived
that the only thing for her to do was to cut in on the
talk, on her own account, and this she began to do.
She made several Ineffectual snatches at the general
attention and then Revel drifted towards a topic she
regarded as particularly her own, the ordering of
households.

They came to the thing through talk about locali-
ties. "We are leaving our house in The Boltons,"
said Revel, "and taking a little place at Wimbledon,
and I think of having rooms in Dane's Inn. It will
be more convenient In many ways. My wife is furi-
ously addicted to golf and exercise of all sorts, and I
like to sit about in clubs — I haven't the strength neces-
sary for these hygienic proceedings — and the old ar-
rangement suited neither of us. And, besides, no one
could Imagine the demoralisation the domestics of
West London have undergone during the last three
years."

"It's the same everywhere," said Mrs. Bindon Hot-
ting.

"Very possibly it is. A friend of mine calls It the
servile tradition in decay and regards it all as a most
hopeful phenomenon "

"He ought to have had my last two criminals,"
said Mrs. Bindon Botting.

She turned to Mrs. Wace while Revel came again
a little too late with a "Possibly "

"And I haven't told you, my dear," she said,

372 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

speaking with voluble rapidity, "I'm in trouble
again."

"The last girl?"

"The last girl. Before I can get a cook, my hard
won housemaid" — she paused — "chucks it."

"Panic?" asked young Walshingham.

"Mysterious grief! Everything merry as a mar-
riage bell until my Anagram Tea ! Then in the even-
ing a portentous rigour of bearing, a word or so from
my Aunt, and immediately — Floods of Tears and
Notice !" For a moment her eye rested thoughtfully
on Kipps, as she said: "Is there anything heartrend-
ing about Anagrams?"

"I find them so," said Revel. "I "

But Mrs. Bindon Botting got away again. "For a
time it made me quite uneasy "

Kipps jabbed his lip with his fork rather painfully,
and was recalled from a fascinated glare at Mrs. Bot-
ting to the immediate facts of dinner.

" whether anagrams might not have offended

the good domestic's Moral Code — you never can tell.
We made enquiries. No. No. No. She ftitist go and
that's all!"

"One perceives," said Revel, "in these disorders,
dimly and distantly, the last dying glow of the age of
Romance. Let us suppose, Mrs. Botting, let us at
least try to suppose — it is Love."

Kipps clattered with his knife and fork.

"It's love," said Mrs. Botting; "what else can it
be? Beneath the orderly humdrum of our lives these

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 373

romances are going on, until at last they bust up and
give Notice and upset our humdrum altogether. Some
fatal, v/onderful soldier "

"The passions of the common or house domestic,"
said Revel, and recovered possession of the table.

Upon the troubled disorder of Kipps' table man-
ners there had supervented a quietness, an unusual
calm. For once in his life he had distinctly made up
his mind on his own account. He listened no more to
Revel. He put down his knife and fork and refused
anything that followed. Coote regarded him with
tactful concern and Helen flushed a little.

§4
About half-past nine that night came a violent pull
at the bell of Mrs. Bindon Dotting, and a young man
in a dress suit, a gibus and other marks of exalted
social position stood without. Athwart his white ex-
panse of breast lay a ruddy bar of patterned silk that
gave him a singular distinction and minimised the
glow of a few small stains of burgundy. His gibus
was thrust back and exposed a disorder of hair that
suggested a reckless desperation. He had, in fact,
burnt his boats and refused to join the ladies. Coote,
in the subsequent conversation, had protested quietly,
"You're going on all right, you know," to which
Kipps had answered he didn't care a "Eng" about
that, and so, after a brief tussel with Walshingham's
detaining arm, had got away. "I got something to
do," he said. " 'Ome." And here he was — panting an

374 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

extraordinary resolve. The door opened, revealing
the pleasantly furnished hall of Mrs. Bindon Dotting,
lit by rose-tinted lights, and in the centre of the pic-
ture, neat and pretty in black and white, stood Ann.
At the sight of Kipps her colour vanished.

"Ann," said Kipps, "I want to speak to you. I got
something to say to you right away. See ? I'm "

"This ain't the door to speak to me at," said Ann.

"But, Ann ! It's something special."

"You spoke enough," said Ann.

"Ann !"

"Besides. That's my door, down there. Basement.
If I was caught talking at this door !"

"But, Ann, I'm "

"Basement after nine. Them's my hours. I'm a
servant and likely to keep one. If you're calling here,
what name please? But you got your friends and I
got mine and you mustn't go talking to w^."

"But, Ann, I want to ask you "

Someone appeared in the hall behind Ann. "Not
here," said Ann. "Don't know anyone of that name,"
and incontinently slammed the door in his face.

"What was that, Ann?" said Mrs. Bindon Bot-
ting's invalid Aunt.

"Ge'm a little intoxicated. Ma'am — asking for the
wrong name, Ma'am."

"What name did he want?" asked the lady, doubt-
fully.

"No name that zve know. Ma'am," said Ann, hus-
tling along the hall towards the kitchen stairs.

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 375

"I hope you weren't too short with him, Ann."

"No shorter than he deserved, considering 'ow he
be'aved," said Ann, with her bosom heaving.

And Mrs. Bindon Botting's invalid Aunt, perceiv-
ing suddenly that this call had some relation to Ann's
private and sentimental trouble, turned, after one
moment of hesitating scrutiny, away.

She was an extremely sympathetic lady, was Mrs.
Bindon Botting's invalid Aunt; she took an interest
in the servants, imposed piety, extorted confessions
and followed human nature, blushing and lying de-
fensively, to its reluctantly revealed recesses, but
Ann's sense of privacy was strong and her manner
under drawing out and encouragement, sometimes
even alarming.

So the poor old lady went upstairs again.

§5

The basement door opened and Kipps came into
the kitchen. He was flushed and panting.

He struggled for speech,

" 'Ere," he said, and held out two half sixpences.

Ann stood behind the kitchen table — face pale and
eyes round, and now — and it simplified Kipps very
much — he could see she had indeed been crying.

"Well?" she said.

"Don't you see?"

Ann moved her head slightly.

"I kep' it all these years."

"You kep' it too long."

376 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

His mouth closed and his flush died away. He
looked at her. The amulet, it seemed, had failed to
work.

"Ann!" he said.

*'Well?"

"Ann."

The conversation still hung fire.

"Ann," he said, made a movement with his hands
that suggested appeal, and advanced a step.

Ann shook her head more defiantly, and became
defensive.

"Look here, Ann," said Kipps. "I been a fool."

They stared into each other's miserable eyes.

"Ann," he said. "I want to marry you."

Ann clutched the table edge. "You can't," she said
faintly.

He made as if to approach her around the table,
and she took a step that restored their distance.

"I must," he said.

"You can't."

"I must. You i^ot to marry me, Ann."

"You can't go marrying everybody. You got to
marry 'er."

"I shan't."

Ann shook her head. "You're engaged to that
girl. Lady, rather. You can't be engaged to me."

"I don't want to be engaged to you. I been en-
gaged. I want tobe marriedtoyou. See? RIghtaway."

Ann turned a shade paler. "But what d'you
mean?" she asked.

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 377

"Come right off to London and marry me. Now."

"What d'you mean?"

Kipps became extremely lucid and earnest.

"I mean come right ofif and marry me now before
anyone else can. See?"

"In London?"

"In London."

They stared at one another again. They took
things for granted in the most amazing way.

"I couldn't," said Ann. "For one thing my month's
not up for mor'n free weeks yet."

They hung before that for a moment as though it
was insurmountable.

"Look 'ere, Ann ! Arst to go. Arst to go!"

*^She wouldn't," said Ann.

"Then come without arsting," said Kipps.

"She's keep my box "

"She won't."

"She will."

"She won't."

"You don't know 'er."

"Well, desh 'er — let 'er! Let 'er! Who cares?
I'll buy you a 'undred boxes if you'll come."

"It wouldn't be right towards Her."

"It isn't Her you got to think about, Ann. It's
me.

"And you 'aven't treated me properly," she said.
"You 'aven't treated me properly, Artie. You didn't
ought to 'ave "

"I didn't say I 'ad/' he interrupted, "did I, Ann?"

378 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

he appealed. "I didn't come to arguefy. I'm all
wrong. I never said I wasn't. It's yes or no. Me
or not. ... I been a fool. There! See? I
been a fool. Ain't that enough? I got myself all tied
up with everyone and made a fool of myself all
around.

He pleaded, "It isn't as if we didn't care for one
another, Ann."

She seemed impassive and he resumed his discourse.

"I thought I wasn't likely ever to see you again,
Ann. I reely did. It isn't as though I was seein' you
all the time. I didn't know what I wanted, and I
went and be'aved like a fool — jest as anyone might.
I know what I want and I know what I don't want
now.

"Ann!"

"Well?"

"Will you come ? . . . Will you come? . . ."

Silence.

"If you don't answer me, Ann — I'm desprit — if
you don't answer me now, if you don't say you'll come
I'll go right out now "

He turned doorward passionately as he spoke, with
his threat incomplete.

"I'll go," he said; "I 'aven't a friend in the world!
I been and throwed everything away. I don't know
why I done things and why I 'aven't. All I know is I
can't stand nothing in the world any more." He
choked. "The pier," he said.

He fumbled with the door latch, grumbling some

CH. VIII KIPPS ENTERS SOCIETY 379

inarticulate self-pity, as if he sought a handle, and
then he had it open.

Clearly he was going.

"Artie!" said Ann, sharply.

He turned about and the two hung, white and
tense,

'Til do it," said Ann.

His face began to work, he shut the door and came
a step back to her, staring; his face became pitiful and
then suddenly they moved together. "Artie !" she
cried, "don't go !" and held out her arms, weeping.

They clung close to one another.

"Oh ! I been so mis'bel," cried Kipps, clinging to
this lifebuoy, and suddenly his emotion, having no
further serious work in hand, burst Its way to a loud
boohoof His fashionable and expensive gibus flopped
off and fell and rolled and lay neglected on the floor.

"I been so mis'bel," said Kipps, giving himself
vent. "Oh ! I been so mis'bel, Ann."

"Be quiet," said Ann, holding his poor, blubbering
head tightly to her heaving shoulder, and herself all
a-quiver; "be quiet. She's there! Listenin'. She'll
*ear you, Artie, on the stairs. . . ."

§6

Ann's last words when, an hour later, they parted,
Mrs. and Miss Bindon Botting having returned very
audibly upstairs, deserve a section to themselves.

"I wouldn't do this for everyone, mind you," whis-
pered Ann,

CHAPTER IX

THE LABYRINTHODON
§1

You imagine them fleeing through our complex and
difHcult social system, as it were, for life, first on foot
and severally to the Folkestone Central Station ; then
in a first-class carriage, with Kipps' bag as sole chap-
erone to Charing Cross, and then in a four-wheeler, a
long, rumbling, palpitating, slow flight through the
multitudinous swarming London streets to Sid. Kipps
kept peeping out of the window. "It's the next cor-
ner after this, I believe," he would say. For he had
a sort of feeling that at Sid's he would be immune
from the hottest pursuits. He paid the cabman in a
manner adequate to the occasion and turned to his
prospective brother-in-law. "Me and Ann," he said,
"we're going to marry."

"But I thought " began Sid.

Kipps motioned him towards explanations in the
shop.

"It's no good, my arguing with you," said Sid,
smiling delightedly as the case unfolded. "You done
it now." And Masterman being apprised of the na-

380

CH. IX THE LABYRINTHODON 38 1

ture of the affair descended slowly in a state of flushed
congratulation.

"I thought you might find the Higher Life a bit
difficult," said Masterman, projecting a bony hand.
"But I never thought you'd have the originality to
clear out, . . . Won't the young lady of the
superior classes swear ! Never mind — it doesn't mat-
ter anyhow.

"You were starting a climb," he said at dinner,
"that doesn't lead anywhere. You would have clam-
bered from one refinement of vulgarity to another and
never got to any satisfactory top. There isn't a top.
It's a squirrel's cage. Things are out of joint, and
the only top there is is a lot of blazing card playing
women and betting men — you should read Modem
Society — seasoned with archbishops and officials and
all that sort of glossy, pandering Bosh. . . .
You'd have hung on, a disconsolate, dismal, little fig-
ure, somewhere up the ladder, far below even the
motor-car class, while your wife larked about — or
fretted because she wasn't a bit higher than she was.
I found it all out long ago. I've seen women
of that sort. And I don't climb any more."

"I often thought about what you said last time I
saw you," said Kipps.

"I wonder what I said," said Masterman in paren-
thesis. "Anyhow, you're doing the right and sane
thing, and that's a rare spectacle. You're going to
marry your equal, and you're going to take your own
line, quite independently of what people up there, or

382 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk.ji

people down there, think you ought or ought not to
do. That's about the only course one can take now-
adays with everything getting more muddled and up-
side down every day. Make your own little world and
your own house first of all, keep that right side up
whatever you do, and marry your mate.
That, I suppose, is what / should do — if / had a
mate. . . . But people of my sort, luckily for
the world, don't get made in pairs. No!

"Besides ! However " And abruptly,

taking advantage of an interruption by Master Walt,
he lapsed into thought.

Presently he came out of his musings.

"After all," he said, "there's hope."

"What about?" said Sid.

"Everything," said Masterman.

"Where there's life there's hope," said Mrs. Sid.
"But none of you aren't eating anything like you
ought to."

Masterman lifted his glass.

"Here's to Hope!" he said, "The Light of the
World!"

Sid beamed at Kipps as who should say, "You don't
meet a character like this every dinner time."

"Here's to Hope," repeated Masterman. "The
best thing one can have. Hope of life — yes."

He imposed his movement of magnificent self-pity
on them all. Even young Walt was impressed.

They spent the days before their marriage in a
number of agreeable excursions together. One day

CH. IX THE LABYRINTHODON 383

they went to Kew by steamboat, and admired the
house full of paintings of flowers extremely; and one
day they went early to have a good, long day at the
Crystal Palace, and enjoyed themselves very much
indeed. They got there so early that nothing was
open inside, all the stalls were wrappered up and all
the minor exhibitions locked and barred; they seemed
the minutest creatures even to themselves in that enor-
mous empty aisle and their echoing footsteps inde-
cently loud. They contemplated realistic groups of
plaster savages, and Ann thought they'd be queer
people to have about. She was glad there were none
in this country. They meditated upon replicas of clas-
sical statuary without excessive comment. Kipps said
at large, it must have been a queer world then, but
Ann very properly doubted if they really went about
like that. But the place at that early hour was really
lonely. One began to fancy things. So they went out
into the October sunshine of the mighty terraces, and
wandered amidst miles of stucco tanks and about
those quiet Gargantuan grounds. A great, grey empti-
ness it was, and it seemed marvellous to them, but not
nearly so marvellous as it might have seemed. "I
never see a finer place, never," said Kipps, turning to
survey the entirety of the enormous glass front with
Paxton's vast image in the centre.

"What it must 'ave cost to build!" said Ann, and
left her sentence eloquently incomplete.

Presently they came to a region of caves and water-
ways, and amidst these waterways strange reminders

384 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. 11

of the possibilities of the Creator. They passed under
an arch made of a whale's jaws, and discovered
amidst herbage, as if they were browsing or standing
unoccupied and staring as if amazed at themselves,
huge effigies of iguanodons and deinotheria and mas-
todons and suchlike cattle, gloriously done in green
and gold.

"They got everything," said Kipps. "Earl's Court
isn't a patch on it."

His mind was very greatly exercised by these mon-
sters, and he hovered about them and returned to
them. "You'd wonder 'ow they ever got enough to
eat," he said several times.

It was later in the day, and upon a seat in the pres-
ence of the green and gold Labyrinthodon that looms
so splendidly above the lake, that the Kippses fell into
talk about their future. They had made a sufficient
lunch in the palace, they had seen pictures and no end
of remarkable things, and that and the amber sun-
light made a mood for them, quiet and philosophical,
a heaven mood. Kipps broke a contemplative silence
with an abrupt illusion to one principal preoccupa-
tion. "I shall offer an 'pology and I shall offer 'er
brother damages. If she likes to bring an action for
Breach after that, well — I done all I can. . . .

CH. IX THE LABYRINTHODON 385

They can't get much out of reading my letters in
court, because 1 didn't write none. I dessay a thou-
san' or two'll settle all that, anyhow. I ain't much
worried about that. That don't worry me very much,
Ann— No."

And then, "It's a lark, our marrying. It's curious
'ow things come about. If I 'adn't run against you,
where should I 'ave been now. Eh? . . . Even
after we met, I didn't seem to see it like — not marry-
ing you I mean — until that night I came. I didn't —
reely."

"I didn't neither," said Ann, with thoughtful eyes
on the water.

For a time KIpps' mind was occupied by the pretti-
ness of her thinking face. A faint, tremulous network
of lights reflected from the ripples of a passing duck,
played subtly over her cheek and faded away.

Ann reflected. "I s'pose things 'ad to be," she
said.

KIpps mused. "It's curious 'ow ever I got on to
be engaged to 'er."

"She wasn't suited to you," said Ann.

"Suited. No fear! That's jest it. 'Ow did it
come about?"

"I expect she led you on," said Ann.

KIpps was half-minded to assent. Then he had a
twinge of conscience. "It wasn't that, Ann," he said.
"It's curious. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't
that. I don't recollect. . . No. . . Life's
jolly rum; that's one thing any'ow. And I suppose

386 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

I'm a rum sort of feller. I get excited sometimes,
and then I don't seem to care what I do. That's
about what it was reely. Still "

They meditated, Kipps with his arms folded and
pulling at his scanty moustache. Presently a faint
smile came over his face.

"We'll get a nice little 'ouse out Ithe way."

"It's 'omelier than Folkestone," said Ann.

"Jest a nice little 'ouse," said Kipps. There's
Hughenden, of course. But that's let. Besides being
miles too big. And I wouldn't live In Folkestone
again some'ow — not for anything."

"I'd like to 'ave a 'ouse of my own," said Ann.
"I've often thought, being in service, 'ow much I'd
like to manage a 'ouse of my own."

"You'd know all about what the servants was up
to, anyhow," said Kipps, amused.

"Servants ! We don't want no servants," said Ann,
startled.

"You'll 'ave to 'ave a servant," said Kipps. "If
it's only to do the 'eavy work of the 'ouse."

"What ! and not be able 'ardly to go into my own
kitchen?" said Ann.

"You ought to 'ave a servant," said Kipps.

"One could easy 'ave a woman in for anything

that's 'eavy," said Ann. "Besides If I 'ad one

of the girls one sees about nowadays I should want to
be taking the broom out of 'er 'and and do it all over
myself. I'd manage better without 'er."

"Wc ought to 'ave one servant anyhow," said

CH.ix THE LABYRINTHODON 387

Kipps, "else 'ow should we manage If we wanted to
go out together or anything like that?"

"I might get a young girl," said Ann, "and bring
'er up in my own way."

Kipps left the matter at that and came back to the
house.

"There's little 'ouses going into Hythe, just the
sort we want, not too big and not too small. We'll
'ave a kitching and a dining-room and a little room
to sit in of a night."

"It mustn't be a 'ouse with a basement," said Ann.

"What's a basement?"

"It's a downstairs, where there's not arf enough
light and everything got to be carried — up and down,
up and down, all day — coals and everything. And
it's got to 'ave a watertap and sink and things up-
stairs. You'd 'ardly believe, Artie, if you 'adn't been
in service, 'ow cruel and silly some 'ouses are built —
you'd think they 'ad a spite against servants the way
the stairs are made,"

"We won't 'ave one of that sort," said Kipps. . .

"We'll 'ave a quiet little life. Now go out a bit —
now come 'ome again. Read a book perhaps If we got
nothing else to do. 'Ave old Buggins in for an even-
ing at times. 'Ave Sid down. There's bicycles "

"I don't fancy myself on a bicycle," said Ann.

" 'Ave a trailer," said Kipps, "and sit like a lady.
I'd take you out to New Romney easy as anything
jest to see the old people."

"I wouldn't mind that," said Ann.

388 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

"We'll jest 'ave a sensible little 'ouse, and sensible
things. No art or anything of that sort, nothing
stuck-up or anything, but jest sensible. We'll be as
right as anything, Ann."

"No socialism," said Ann, starting a lurking
doubt.

"No socialism," said Kipps; "just sensible, that's
all."

"I dessay It's all right for them that understand
it, Artie, but I don't agree with this socialism."

"I don't neither, reely," said Kipps. "I can't argue
about It, but It don't seem real like to me. All the
same Masterman's a clever fellow, Ann."

"I didn't like 'im at first, Artie, but I do now — In
a way. You don't understand 'im all at once."

" 'E's so clever," said Kipps. "Arf the time I
can't make out what 'e's up to. 'E's the cleverest
chap I ever met. 1 never 'card such talking. 'E ought
to write a book. . . . It's a rum world, Ann,
when a chap like that isn't 'ardly able to earn a liv-
Ing."

"It's 'Is 'ealth," said Ann.

"I expect It Is," said Kipps, and ceased to talk for
a little while.

Then he spoke with deliberation, "Sea air might
be the saving of 'Im, Ann."

He glanced doubtfully at Ann, and she was looking
at him even fondly.

"You think of other people a lot," said Ann. "I
been looking at you sittin' there and thinking."

CH. IX THE LABYRINTHODON 389

"I suppose I do. I suppose when one's 'appy one
does."

"You do," said Ann.

"We shall be 'appy in that little 'ouse, Ann. Don't
y' think?"

She met his eyes and nodded.

"I seem to see it," said Kipps, "sort of cosy like.
'Bout tea time and muffins, kettle on the 'ob, cat on
the 'earthrug. We must get a cat, Ann, and you
there. Eh?"

They regarded each other with appreciative eyes
and Kipps became irrelevant.

"I don't believe, Ann," he said, "I 'aven't kissed
you not for 'arf an hour. Leastways not since we was
in those caves."

For kissing had already ceased to be a matter of
thrilling adventure for them.

Ann shook her head. "You be sensible and go on
talking about Mr. MaSterman," she said.

But Kipps had wandered to something else. "I
like the way your 'air turns back just there," he said,
with an indicative finger, "It was like that, I remem-
ber, when you was a girl. Sort of wavy. I've often

thought of it . . . 'Member when we raced

that time — out be'ind the church?"

Then for a time they sat idly, each following out
agreeable meditations.

"It's rum," said Kipps.

"What's rum?"
'Ow everything's 'appened," said Kipps. "Who'd

(( w

390 MR. COOTE, THE CHAPERON bk. ii

'ave thought of our being 'ere like this six weeks ago?
. . . . Who'd 'ave thought of my ever 'aving any
money?"

His eyes went to the big Labyrinthodon. He look-
ed first carelessly and then suddenly with a growing
interest in its vast face.

"I'm deshed," he murmured. Ann became inter-
ested. He laid a hand on her arm and pointed. Ann
scrutinised the Labyrinthodon and then came around
to Kipps' face in mute interrogation.

"Don't you see it?" said Kipps.

"See what?"

" 'E's jest like old Coote."

"It's extinct," said Ann, not clearly apprehend-
ing.

"I dessay 'e is. But 'e's jest like old Coote all the
same for that."

Kipps meditated on the monstrous shapes in sight.
"I wonder 'ow all these old antediluvium animals got
extinct," he asked. "No one couldn't possibly 'ave
killed 'em."

"Why ! / know that," said Ann. "They was over-
took by the Flood. ..."

Kipps meditated for a while. "But I thought they
had to take two of everything there was "

"Within reason they 'ad," said Ann. . . ,

The Kippses left it at that.

The great green and gold Labyrinthodon took no
notice of their conversation. It gazed with its won-
derful eyes over their heads into the infinite — inflexi-

CH.ix THE LABYRINTHODON 391

bly calm. It might indeed have been Coote himself
there, Coote, the unassuming, cutting them dead. . .

And in due course these two simple souls married,
and Venus Urania, the Goddess of Wedded Love,
the Goddess of Tolerant Kindliness or Meeting Half
Way, to whom all young couples should pray and
offer sacrifices of self, who is indeed a very great and
noble and kindly goddess, was in some manner pro-
pitiated, and bent down and blessed them in their
union.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III
KIPPSES

CHAPTER I

THE HOUSING PROBLEM

Honeymoons and all things come to an end, and
you see at last Mr. and Mrs. Arthur KIpps descend-
ing upon the Hythe platform — coming to Hythe to
find that nice little house — to realise that bright
dream of a home they had first talked about In the
grounds of the Crystal Palace. They are a valiant
couple, you perceive, but small, and the world is a
large incongruous system of complex and difficult
things. Kipps wears a grey suit, with a wing-poke
collar and a neat, smart tie. Mrs. Kipps is the same
bright and healthy little girl woman you saw in the
marsh ; not an inch has been added to her stature In all
my voluminous narrative. Only now she wears a
hat.

It is a hat very unlike the hats she used to wear on
her Sundays out, a flourishing hat with feathers and
buckle and bows and things. The price of that hat
would take many people's breath away — it cost two

395

396 KIPPSES BK. Ill

guineas 1 Kipps chose it. Kipps paid for it. They
left the shop with flushed cheeks and smarting eyes,
glad to be out of range of the condescending sales-
woman.

"Artie," said Ann, "you didn't ought to 'ave "

That was all. And you know, the hat didn't suit
Ann a bit. Her clothes did not suit her at all. The
simple, cheap, clean brightness of her former style
had given place not only to this hat, but to several
other things in the same key. And out from among
these things looked her pretty face, the face of a wise
little child — an artless wonder struggling through a
preposterous dignity.

They had bought that hat one day when they had
gone to see the shops in Bond street. Kipps had
looked at the passers-by and it had suddenly occurred
to him that Ann was dowdy. He had noted the hat
of a very proud-looking lady passing in an electric
brougham and had resolved to get Ann the nearest
thing to that.

The railway porters perceived some subtle in-
congruity in Ann, the knot of cabmen in the station
doorway, the two golfers and the lady with daugh-
ters, who had also got out of the train. And Kipps,
a little pale, blowing a little, not in complete pos-
session of himself, knew that they noticed her and

him. And Ann . It is hard to say just what Ann

observed of these things.

" 'Ere!" said Kipps to a cabman, and regretted too
late a vanished "H."

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 397

"I got a trunk up there," he said to a ticket in-
spector, "marked A. K."

"Ask a porter," said the inspector, turning his
back.

"Demn!" said Kipps, not altogether inaudibly.

It is all very well to sit in the sunshine and talk
of the house you will have, and another altogether
to achieve it. We English — all the world indeed
to-day — live in a strange atmosphere of neglected
great issues, of insistent, triumphant petty things,
we are given up to the fine littlenesses of intercourse ;
table manners and small correctitudes are the sub-
stance of our lives. You do not escape these things
for long even by so catastrophic a proceeding as
flying to London with a young lady of no wealth and
inferior social position. The mists of noble emotion
swirl and pass and there you are divorced from all
your deities and grazing in the meadows under the
Argus eyes of the social system, the innumerable
mean judgments you feel raining upon you, upon your
clothes and bearing, upon your pretensions and move-
ments.

Our world to-day is a meanly conceived one — it
is only an added meanness to conceal that fact. For
one consequence. It has very few nice little houses,
such things do not come for the asking, they are not
to be bought with money during ignoble times. Its

398 KIPPSES BK. Ill

houses are built on the ground of monstrously rich,
shabbily extortionate landowners, by poor, parsimo-
nious, greedy people in a mood of elbowing competi-
tion. What can you expect from such ridiculous con-
ditions? To go househunting is to spy out the naked-
ness of this pretentious world, to see what our civili-
zation amounts to when you take away curtains and
flounces and carpets and all the fluster and distrac-
tion of people and fittings. It is to see mean plans
meanly executed for mean ends, the conventions torn
aside, the secrets stripped, the substance underlying
all such Chester Cootery, soiled and worn and left.

So you see our poor, dear Kippses going to and fro,
in Hythe, in Sandgate, in Ashford and Canterbury
and Deal and Dover — at last even in Folkestone,
with "orders to view," pink and green and white and
yellow orders to view, and labelled keys in Kipps'
hand and frowns and perplexity upon their faces.
They did not clearly know what they
wanted, but whatever it was they saw, they knew
they did not want that. Always they found a con-
fusing multitude of houses they could not take, and
none they could. Their dreams began to turn mainly
on empty, abandoned-looking rooms, with unfaded
patches of paper to mark the place of vanished pic-
tures and doors that had lost their keys. They saw
rooms floored with boards that yawned apart and
were splintered, skirtings eloquent of the industrious
mouse, kitchens with a dead black-beetle in the empty
cupboard, and a hideous variety of coal holes and

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 399

dark cupboards under the stairs. They stuck their
little heads through roof trap-doors and gazed at
disorganised ball taps, at the bleak filthiness of un-
stoppered roofs. There were occasions when it seemed
to them that they must be the victims of an elaborate
conspiracy of house agents, so bleak and cheerless Is
a second-hand empty house in comparison with the
humblest of inhabited dwellings.

Commonly the houses were too big. They had
huge windows that demanded vast curtains in miti-
gation, countless bedrooms, acreage of stone steps to
be cleaned, kitchens that made Ann protest. She had
come so far towards a proper conception of Kipps'
social position as to admit the prospect of one servant
— "but lor'!" she would say, "you'd want a man-
servant in this 'ouse." When the houses were not
too big, then they were almost invariably the product
of speculative building, of that multitudinous hasty
building for the extravagant multitude of new births
that was the essential disaster of the nineteenth cen-
tury. The new houses Ann refused as damp, and
even the youngest of these that had been In use
showed remarkable signs of a sickly constitution, the
plaster flaked away, the floors gaped, the paper
mouldered and peeled, the doors dropped, the bricks
scaled and the railings rusted, Nature in the form of
spiders, earwigs, cockroaches, mice, rats, fungi and
remarkable smells, was already fighting her way
back.

And the plan was invariably inconvenient, inva-

400 KIPPSES BK. Ill

riably. All the houses they saw had a common qual-
ity for which she could find no word, but for which
the proper word is incivility. "They build these
'ouses," she said, "as though girls wasn't 'uman
beings." Sid's social democracy had got into her
blood perhaps, and anyhow they went about discov-
ering the most remarkable inconsiderateness in the
contemporary house. "There's kitching stairs to go
up, Artie!" Ann would say. "Some poor girl's got
to go up and down, up and down, and be tired out,
jest because they haven't the sense to leave enough
space to give their steps a proper rise — and no water
upstairs anywhere — every drop got to be carried!
It's 'ouses like this wear girls out,

"It's 'aving 'ouses built by men, I believe, makes
all the work and trouble," said Ann.

The Kippses, you see, thought they were looking
for a reasonably simple little contemporary house,
but indeed they were looking either for dreamland
or 1975 A.D. or thereabouts, and it hadn't come.

§3-

But it was a foolish thing of Kipps to begin build-
ing a house.

He did that out of an extraordinary animosity for
house agents he had conceived.

Everybody hates house agents just as everybody
loves sailors. It is no doubt a very wicked and un-
just hatred, but the business of a novehst is not

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 401

ethical principle but facts. Everybody hates house
agents because they have everybody at a disadvan-
tage. All other callings have a certain amount of
give and take; the house agent simply takes. All
other callings want you ; your solicitor is afraid you
may change him, your doctor cannot go too far, your
novelist — if only you knew it — is mutely abject
towards your unspoken wishes — and as for your
tradespeople, milkmen will fight outside your front
door for you, and green-grocers call in tears if you
discard them suddenly; but who ever heard of a house
agent struggling to serve anyone? You want to get
a house; you go to him, you dishevelled and angry
from travel, anxious, enquiring; he calm, clean, in-
active, reticent, quietly doing nothing. You beg him
to reduce rents, whitewash ceilings, produce other
houses, combine the summer house of No. 6 with the
conservatory of No. 4 — much he cares ! You want
to dispose of a house ; then he is just the same, serene,
indifferent — on one occasion I remember he was pick-
ing his teeth all the time he answered me. Com-
petition is a mockery among house agents, they are
all alike, you cannot wound them by going to the op-
posite office, you cannot dismiss them, you can at
most dismiss yourself. They are invulnerably placed
behind mahogany and brass, too far usually even for
a sudden swift lunge with an umbrella, and to throw
away the keys they lend you instead of returning them
is larceny and punishable as such.

It was a house agent in Dover who finally decided

402 KIPPSES BK. Ill

KIpps to build. Kipps, with a certain faltering in his
voice, had delivered his ultimatum, no basement, not
more than eight rooms, hot and cold water upstairs,
coal cellar in the house but with intervening doors
to keep dust from the scullery and so forth. He
stood blowing. "You'll have to build a house," said
the house agent, sighing wearily, "if you want all
that." It was rather for the sake of effective an-
swer than with any intention at the time that Kipps
mumbled, "That's about what I shall do — this goes
on."

Whereupon the house agent smiled. He smiled!

When Kipps came to turn the thing over in his
mind he was surprised to find quite a considerable
intention had germinated and was growing up in him.
After all, lots of people have built houses. How
could there be so many if they hadn't? Suppose he
"reely" did! Then he would go to the house agent
and say, " 'Ere, while you been getting me a sootable
'ouse, blowed if I 'aven't built one!'* Go round to
all of them; all the house agents in Folkestone, in
Dover, Ashford, Canterbury, Margate, Ramsgate,
saying that ! Perhaps then they might be sorry. It
was in the small hours that he awoke to a realisation
that he had made up his mind in the matter.

"Ann," he said, "Ann," and also used the sharp of
his elbow.

Ann was at last awakened to the pitch of an indis-
tinct enquiry what was the matter.

"I'm going to build a house, Ann."

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 403

"Eh?" said Ann, suddenly, as if awake,

"Build a house."

Ann said something incoherent about he'd better
wait until the morning before he did anything of the
sort, and immediately with a fine trustfulness went
fast asleep again.

But Kipps lay awake for a long while building his
house, and in the morning at breakfast he made his
meaning clear. He had smarted under the indigni-
ties of house agents long enough, and this seemed to
promise revenge — a fine revenge. "And, you know,
we might reely make rather a nice little 'ouse out of
it — like we want."

So resolved, it became possible for them to take a
house for a year, with a basement, no service lift,
blackleading to do ever^^where, no water upstairs, no
bathroom, vast sash windows to be cleaned from the
sill, stone steps with a twist and open to the rain into
the coal cellar, insufficient cupboards, unpaved path
to the dustbin, no fireplace to the servant's bedroom,
no end of splintery wood to scrub — in fact, a very
typical English middle-class house. And having
added to this house some furniture, and a languid
young person with unauthentic golden hair named
Gwendolen, who was engaged to a sergeant-major
and had formerly been in an hotel, having "moved
in" and spent some sleepless nights varied by noc-
turnal explorations in search of burglars, because of
the strangeness of being in a house for which they
were personally responsible, Kipps settled down for a

404 KIPPSES BK. Ill

time and turned himself with considerable resolution
to the project of building a home.

At first Kipps had gathered advice, finding an ini- '
tial dijSiculty in how to begin. He went into a build-
er's shop at Seabrook one day, and told the lady in
charge that he wanted a house built; he was breath-
less but quite determined, and he was prepared to
give his order there and then, but she temporised with
him and said her husband was out, and he left with-
out giving his name. Also he went and talked to a
man in a cart who was pointed out to him by a work-
man as the builder of a new house near Saltwood,
but he found him first sceptical and then overpower-
ingly sarcastic. "I suppose you build a 'ouse every
'oliday," he said, and turned from Kipps with every
symptom of contempt.

Afterwards Carshot told alarming stories about
builders, and shook Kipps' expressed resolution a
good deal, and then Pierce raised the question whether
one ought to go in the first instance to a builder at
all and not rather to an architect. Pierce knew a
man at Ashford whose brother was an architect, and
as it is always better in these matters to get some-
one you know, the Kippses decided, before Pierce
had gone, and Carshot's warning had resumed their
sway, to apply to him. They did so — rather du-
biously.

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 405

The architect who was brother of Pierce's friend
appeared as a small, alert Individual with a black, bag
and a cylindrical silk hat, and he sat at the dining-
room table, with his hat and his bag exactly equi-
distant right and left of him, and maintained a de-
meanour of Impressive woodenness, while KIpps on
the hearthrug, with a quaking sense of gigantic en-
terprise, vacillated answers to his enquiries. Ann
held a watching brief for herself, In a position she
had chosen as suitable to the occasion beside the cor-
ner of the carved oak sideboard. They felt, in a
sense, at bay.

The architect began by asking for the site, and
seemed a little discomposed to discover this had still
to be found. "I thought of building just anywhere,"
said KIpps. "I 'aven't made up my mind about that
yet." The architect remarked that he would have
preferred to see the site in order to know where to
put what he called his "ugly side," but It was quite
possible of course to plan a house "in the air," on the
level, "simply with back and front assumed" — if they
would like to do that. KIpps flushed slightly, and
secretly hoping It would make no great difference in
the fees, said a little doubtfully that he thought that
would be all right.

The architect then marked off as It were the first
section of his subject, with a single dry cough, opened
his bag, took out a spring tape measure, some hard
biscuits, a metal flask, a new pair of dogskin gloves,
a clockwork motor-car partially wrapped in paper, a

4o6 KIPPSES BK. Ill

bunch of violets, a paper of small brass screws, and
finally a large, distended notebook; he replaced the
other objects carefully, opened his notebook, put a
pencil to his lips and said: "And what accommoda-
tion will you require?" To which Ann, who had fol-
lowed his every movement with the closest attention
and a deepening dread, replied with the violent sud-
denness of one who has long lain in wait, "Cubbuds !"

"Anyhow," she added, catching her husband's eye.

The architect wrote it down.

"And how many rooms?" he said, coming to sec-
ondary matters.

The young people regarded one another. It was
dreadfully like giving an order.

"How many bedrooms, for example?" asked the
architect.

"One?" suggested Kipps, inclined now to mini-
mise at any cost.

"There's Gwendolen," said Ann.

"Visitors perhaps," said the architect, and tem-
perately, "You never know."

"Two, p'raps?" said Kipps. "We don't want no
more than a little 'ouse, you know."

"But the merest shooting-box ," said the

architect.

They got to six; he beat them steadily from bed-
room to bedroom, the word "nursery" played across
their imaginative skies — he mentioned it as the re-
motest possibility — and then six being reluctantly
conceded, Ann came forward to the table, sat down

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 407

and delivered herself of one of her prepared condi-
tions: " 'Ot and cold water," she said, "laid on to
each room — any'ow."

It was an idea long since acquired from Sid.

"Yes," said Kipps, on the hearthrug, " 'Ot and
cold water laid on to each bedroom — we've settled on
that."

It was the first intimation to the architect that he
had to deal with a couple of exceptional originality,
and as he had spent the previous afternoon in finding
three large houses in The Builder, which he intended
to combine into an original and copyright design of
his own, he naturally struggled against these novel
requirements. He enlarged on the extreme expen-
siveness of plumbing, on the extreme expensiveness of
everything not already arranged for in his scheme,
and only when Ann declared she'd as soon not have
the house as not have her requirements, and Kipps,
blenching the while, had said he didn't mind what a
thing cost him so long as he got what he wanted, did
he allow a kindred originality of his own to appear
beneath the acquired professionalism of his methods.
He dismissed their previous talk with his paragraphic
cough. "Of course," he said, "if you don't mind
being unconventional "

He explained that he had been thinking of a Queen
Anne style of architecture (Ann directly she heard
her name shook her head at Kipps in an aside) so far
as the exterior went. For his own part, he said, he
liked to have the exterior of a house in a style, not

4o8 KIPPSES BK. m

prlggishly in a style, but mixed, with one style upper-
most, and the gables and dormers and casements of
the Queen Anne style, with a little rough cast and
sham timbering here and there and perhaps a bit of
an overhang diversified a house and made it interest-
ing. The advantages of what he called a Queen
Anne style was that it had such a variety of features.
Still, if they were prepared to be unconven-
tional it could be done. A number of houses were
now built in the unconventional style and were often
very pretty. In the unconventional style one fre-
quently had what perhaps he might call Internal
Features, for example, an Old English oak staircase
and gallery. White rough-cast and green paint were
a good deal favoured in houses of this type.

He indicated that this excursus on style was fin-
ished by a momentary use of his cough, and reopened
his notebook, which he had closed to wave about in a
moment of descriptiv^e enthusiasm while expatiating
on the unbridled wealth of External Features asso-
ciated with Queen Anne. "Six bedrooms," he said,
moistening his pencil. "One with barred windows
suitable for a nursery if required."

Kipps endorsed this huskily and reluctantly.

There followed a most interesting discussion upon
house building, in which Kipps played a minor part.
They passed from bedrooms to the kitchen and scul-
lery, and there Ann displayed an intelligent exact-
ingness that won the expressed admiration of the
architect. They were particularly novel upon the

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 409

position of the coal cellar, which Ann held to be alto-
gether too low in the ordinary house, necessitating
much heavy carrying. They dismissed as imprac-
ticable the idea of having coal cellar and kitchen at
the top of the house, because that would involve car-
rying all the coal through the house, and therewith
much subsequent cleaning, and for a time they dealt
with a conception of a coal cellar on the ground floor
with a light staircase running up outside to an ex-
terior shoot. "It might be made a Feature," said
the architect, a little doubtfully, jotting down a note
of it. "It would be apt to get black, you know."

Thence they passed to the alternative of service
lifts, and then by an inspiration of the architect to
the possibilities of gas heating. Kipps did a com-
plicated verbal fugue on the theme, "gas heating
heats the air," with variable aspirates; he became
very red and was lost to the discussion altogether for
a time, though his lips kept silently on.

Subsequently the architect wrote to say that he
found in his notebook very full and explicit direc-
tions for bow windows to all rooms, for bedrooms,
for water supply, lift, height of stairs and absence
of twists therein, for a well-ventilated kitchen twenty
feet square, with two dressers and a large box-window
seat, for scullery and outhouses and offices, but noth-
ing whatever about drawing-room, dining-room, li-
brary or study, or approximate cost, and he awaited
further instructions. He presumed there would be a
breakfast-room, dining-room, drawing-room, and

410 KIPPSES BK. Ill

study for Mr. Kipps, at least that was his conception,
and the young couple discussed this matter long and
ardently.

Ann was distinctly restrictive in this direction. "I
don't see what you want a drawin'-room and a dinin'
and a kitchen for. If we was going to let in summer
— well and good. But we're not going to let. Con-
sequently we don't want so many rooms. Then
there's a 'all. What use is a 'all? It only makes
work. And a study!"

Kipps had been humming and stroking his mous-
tache since he had read the architect's letter. "I
think I'd like a little bit of a study — not a big one, of
course, but one with a desk and book-shelves, like
there was in Hughenden. I'd like that."

It was only after they had talked to the architect
again and seen how scandalised he was at the idea
of not having a drawing-room that they consented
to that Internal Feature. They consented to
please him. "But we shan't never use it," said
Ann.

Kipps had his way about a study. "When I get
that study," said Kipps, "I shall do a bit of reading
I've long wanted to do. I shall make a nabit of
going in there and reading something an hour every
day. There's Shakespeare and a lot of things a man
like me ought to read. Besides, we got to 'ave some-
where to put the Encyclopaedia. I've always thought
a study was about what I've wanted all along. You
can't 'elp reading if you got a study. If you 'aven't,

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 41 1

there's nothing for it, so far's / can see, but treshy
novels."

He looked down at Ann and was surprised to see
a joyless thoughtfulness upon her face.

"Fency, Ann !" he said, not too buoyantly, " 'aving
a little 'ouse of our own!"

"It won't be a little 'ouse," said Ann, "not with all
them rooms."

§5

Any lingering doubt in that matter was dispelled
when it came to plans.

The architect drew three sets of plans on a trans-
parent bluish sort of paper that smelt abominably.
He painted them very nicely; brick red and ginger,
and arsenic green and a leaden sort of blue, and
brought them over to show our young people. The
first set were very simple, with practically no Ex-
ternal Features — "a plain style," he said it was — but
it looked a big sort of house nevertheless ; the second
had such extras as a conservatory, bow windows of
various sorts, one rough-cast gable and one half-tim-
bered ditto in plaster, and a sort of overhung veran-
dah, and was much more imposing; and the third
was quite fungoid with External Features, and honey-
combed with Internal ones; it was, he said, "prac-
tically a mansion," and altogether a very noble fruit
of the creative mind of man. It was, he admitted,
perhaps almost too good for Hythe ; his art had run
away with him and produced a modern mansion in

412 KIPPSES BK. Ill

the "best Folkestone style"; it had a central hall with
a staircase, a Moorish gallery, and Tudor stained
glass window, crenelated battlements to the leading
over the portico, an octagonal bulge with octagonal
bay windows, surmounted by an oriental dome of
metal, lines of yellow bricks to break up the red and
many other richnesses and attractions. It was the
sort of house, ornate and in its dignified way volup-
tuous, that a city magnate might build, but it seemed
excessive to the Kippses. The first plan had seven
bedrooms, the second eight, the third eleven; that
had, the architect explained, "worked in" as if they
were pebbles in a mountaineer's boat.

"They're big 'ouses," said Ann directly the eleva-
tions were unrolled.

Kipps listened to the architect with round eyes
and an exuberant caution in his manner, anxious not
to commit himself further than he had done to the
enterprise, and the architect pointed out the Features
and other objects of interest with the scalpel belong-
ing to a pocket manicure set that he carried. Ann
watched Kipps' face and communicated with him
furtively over the architect's head. "A^of so big,"
said Ann's lips.

"It's a bit big for what I meant," said Kipps, with
a reassuring eye on Ann.

"You won't think it big when you see it up," said
the architect; "you take my word for that."

"We don't want no more than six bedrooms," said
Kipps.

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 413

"Make this one a box-room, then," said the archi-
tect.

A feeling of impotence silenced Kipps for a time.

"Now which," said the architect, spreading them
out, "is it to be?"

He flattened down the plans of the most ornate
mansion to show it to better effect.

Kipps wanted to know how much each would cost
"at the outside," which led to much alarmed signal-
ling from Ann. But the architect could estimate only
in the most general way.

They were not really committed to anything when
the architect went away; Kipps had promised to
think it over, that was all.

"We can't 'ave that 'ouse," said Ann.

"They're miles too big — all of them," agreed
Kipps.

"You'd want . Four servants wouldn't be

'ardly enough," said Ann.

Kipps went to the hearthrug and spread himself.
His tone was almost offhand. "Nex' time 'e comes,"
said Kipps, "I'll 'splain to him. It isn't at all the
sort of thing we want. It's — it's a misunderstanding.
You got no occasion to be anxious 'bout it, Ann."

"I don't see much good reely in building an 'ouse
at all," said Ann.

"Oo, we got to build a 'ouse now we begun," said
Kipps. "But, now, supposin' we 'ad ."

He spread out the most modest of the three plans
and scratched his cheek.

414 KIPPSES BK. Ill

§6

It was unfortunate that old Kipps came over the
next day.

Old Kipps always produced peculiar states of mind
In his nephew, a rash assertiveness, a disposition
towards display unlike his usual self. There had
been great difficulty In reconciling both these old peo-
ple to the Pornick mesalliance, and at times the con-
troversy echoed in old Kipps' expressed thoughts.
This perhaps it was, and no ignoble vanity, that set
the note of florid successfulness going in Kipps' con-
versation whenever his uncle appeared. Mrs. Kipps
was, as a matter of fact, not reconciled at all, she had
declined all Invitations to come over on the 'bus, and
was a taciturn hostess on the one occasion when the
young people called at the toy shop en route for Mrs.
Pornick. She displayed a tendency to sniff that was
clearly due to pride rather than catarrh, and except
for telling Ann she hoped she would not feel too
"stuck up" about her marriage, confined her conver-
sation to her nephew or the Infinite. The call was a
brief one and made up chiefly of pauses, no refresh-
ment was offered or asked for, and Ann departed
with a singularly high colour. For som'e reason she
would not call at the toy shop when they Yound them-
selves again In New Romney.

But old Kipps, having adventured over and tried
the table of the new menage and found It to his taste,

CH.i THE HOUSING PROBLEM 415

showed many signs of softening towards Ann. He
came again and then again. He would come over by
the 'bus, and except when his mouth was absolutely
full, he would give his nephew one solid and contin-
uous mass of advice of the most subtle and disturbing
description, until it was time to toddle back to the
High Street for the afternoon 'bus. He would walk
with him to the sea front, and commence pourparlers
with boatmen for the purchase of one of their boats.
*'You ought to keep a boat of your own," he said,
though Kipps was a singularly poor sailor — or he
would pursue a plan that was forming in his mind
in which he should own and manage what he called
"weekly" property in the less conspicuous streets of
Hythe. The cream of that was to be a weekly col-
lection of rents in person, the nearest approach to
feudal splendour left in this democratised country.
He gave no hint of the source of the capital he de-
signed for this investment and at times it would ap-
pear he intended it as an occupation for his nephew
rather than himself.

But there remained something in his manner
towards Ann; in the glances of scrutiny he gave her
unawares, that kept Kipps alertly expansive when-
ever he was about. And in all sorts of ways. It was
on account of old Kipps, for example, that our Kipps
plunged one day, a golden plunge, and brought home
a box of cummerbundy ninepenny cigars, and substi-
tuted blue label old Methusaleh Four Stars for the
common and generally satisfactory white brand.

41 6 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"Some of this is whiskey, my boy," said old Kipps
when he tasted It, smacking critical lips.

"Saw a lot of young officer fellers coming along,"
said old KIpps. "You ought to join the volunteers,
my boy, and get to know a few."

"I dessay I shall," said KIpps. "Later."

"They'd make you an officer, you know, 'n no
time. They want officers," said old KIpps. "It isn't
everyone can afford It. They'd be regular glad to
'ave you. . . . Ain't bort a dog yet?"

"Not yet, uncle. 'Ave a segar?"

"Not a moty car?"

"Not yet, uncle."

"There's no 'urry 'bout that. And don't get one
of these 'ere trashy cheap ones when you do get it,
my boy. Get one as'U last a lifetime. . . . I'm
surprised you don't 'Ire a bit more."

"Ann don't seem to fency a moty car," said
KIpps.

"Ah!" said old KIpps, "I expect not," and glanced
a comment at the door. "She ain't used to going
out," he said. "More at 'ome Indoors."

"Fact Is," said KIpps, hastily, "we're thinking of
building a 'ouse."

"I wouldn't do that, my boy," began old KIpps,
but his nephew was routing In the cheffonler drawer
amidst the plans. He got them In time to check some
further comment on Ann. "Um," said the old
gentleman, a little Impressed by the extraordinary
odour and the unusual transparency of the tracing

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 417

paper Kipps put into his hands. "Thinking of build-
ing a 'ouse, are you?"

Kipps began with the most modest of the three
projects.

Old Kipps read slowly through his silver-rimmed
spectacles: "Plan of a 'ouse for Arthur Kipps Es-
quire— Um."

He didn't warm to the project all at once, and Ann
drifted into the room to find him still scrutinising the
architect's proposals a little doubtfully.

"We couldn't find a decent 'ouse anywhere," said
Kipps, leaning against the table and assuming an off-
hand note. "I didn't see why we shouldn't run up
one for ourselves." Old Kipps could not help liking
the tone of that.

"We thought we might see " said Ann.

"It's a spekerlation, of course," said old Kipps,
and held the plan at a distance of two feet or more
from his glasses and frowned. "This isn't exactly
the 'ouse I should expect you to 'ave thought of,
though," he said. "Practically it's a villa. It's the
sort of 'ouse a bank clerk might 'ave. 'Tisn't what
I should call a gentleman's 'ouse, Artie."

"It's plain, of course," said Kipps, standing beside
his uncle and looking down at this plan, which cer-
tainly did seem a little less magnificent now than it
had at the first encounter.

"You mustn't 'ave it too plain," said old Kipps.

"If it's comfortable ," Ann hazarded.

Old Kipps glanced at her over his spectacles.

41 8 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"You ain't comfortable, my gal, in this world, not
if you don't live up to your position," so putting com-
pactly into contemporary English that fine old
phrase, noblesse oblige. "A 'ouse of this sort is what
a retired tradesman might 'ave, or some little whip-
persnapper of a s'liciter. But you "

"Course that isn't the o'ny plan," said Kipps, and
tried the middle one.

But it was the third one which won over old Kipps.
"Now that's a 'ouse, my boy," he said at the sight
of it.

Ann came and stood just behind her husband's
shoulder while old Kipps expanded upon the desira-
bility of the larger scheme. "You ought to 'ave a
billiard-room," he said; "I don't see that, but all the
rest's all right. A lot of these 'ere officers 'ere 'ud be
glad of a game of billiards."

"What's all these dots?" said old Kipps.

"S'rubbery," said Kipps. "Flow'ing s'rubs."

"There's eleven bedrooms in that 'ouse," said Ann.
"It's a bit of a lot, ain't it, uncle?"

"You'll want 'em, my girl. As you get on, you'll
be 'aving visitors. Friends of your 'usband, p'raps,
from the School of Musketry, what you want 'im to
get on with. You can't never tell."

"If we 'ave a great s'rubbery," Ann ventured, "we
shall 'ave to keep a gardener."

"If you don't 'ave a s'rubbery," said old Kipps,
with a note of patient reasoning, " 'ow are you to pre-
vent every jackanapes that goes by, starin' into your

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 419

drorln'-room winder — p'raps when you get someone
a bit special to entertain?"

"We ain't used to a s'rubbery," said Ann, mulish-
ly; "we get on very well 'ere."

"It isn't what you're used to," said old Kipps, "it's
what you ought to 'ave wow." And with that Ann
dropped out of the discussion.

"Study and lib'ry," old Kipps read. "That's right.
I see a Tantalus the other day over Brookland, the
very thing for a gentleman's study. I'll try and get
over and bid for it."

By 'bus time old Kipps was quite enthusiastic about
the house building, and it seemed to be definitely set-
tled that the largest plan was the one decided upon.
But Ann had said nothing further in the matter.

§7

When Kipps returned from seeing his uncle into
the 'bus — there always seemed a certain doubt
whether that portly figure would go into the little red
"Tip-Top" box — he found Ann still standing by the
table, looking with an expression of comprehensive
disapproval at the three plans.

"There don't seem much the matter with uncle,"
said Kipps, assuming the hearthrug, "spite of 'is
'eartburn. 'E 'opped up them steps like a bird."

Ann remained staring at the plans.

"You don't like them plans?" hazarded Kipps.

"No, I don't, Artie."

420 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"We got to build somethin' now."

"But — it's a gentleman's 'ouse, Artie!"

"It's — it's a decent size, o' course."

Kipps took a flirting look at the drawing and went
to the window.

"Look at the cleanin'. Free servants'll be lost in
that 'ouse, Artie."

"We must ^ave servants," said Kipps.

Ann looked despondently at her future residence.

"We got to keep up our position, any'ow," said
Kipps, turning towards her. "It stands to reason,
Ann, we got a position. Very well ! I can't 'ave you
scrubbin' floors. You got to 'ave a servant and you
got to manage a 'ouse. You wouldn't 'ave me
ashamed "

Ann opened her lips and did not speak.

"What?" asked Kipps.

"Nothing," said Ann, "only I did want it to be a
little 'ouse, Artie. I wanted it to be a 'andy little
'ouse, jest for us."

Kipps' face was suddenly flushed and mulish. He
took up the curiously smelling tracings again. "I'm
not a-going to be looked down upon," he said. "It's
not only Uncle I'm thinking of!"

Ann stared at him.

Kipps went on. "I won't 'ave that young Walsh-
ingham f'r instance, sneering and sniffling at me.
Making out as if we was all wrong. I see 'im yester-
day. . . . Nor Coote neether. I'm as good —
we're as good. Whatever's 'appened."

cn. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 421

Silence and the rustle of plans.

He looked up and saw Ann's eyes bright with
tears. For a moment the two stared at one another.

"We'll 'ave the big 'ouse," said Ann, with a gulp.
"I didn't think of that, Artie."

Her aspect was fierce and resolute, and she strug-
gled with emotion. "We'll 'ave the big 'ouse," she
repeated. "They shan't say I dragged you down
wiv' me — none of them shan't say that. I've thought
— I've always been afraid of that."

Kipps looked again at the plan, and suddenly the
grand house had become very grand indeed. He
blew.

"No, Artie, none of them shan't say that," and
with something blind in her motions Ann tried to
turn the plan round to her.

After all, Kipps thought there might be something
to say for the milder project. . . . But he had
gone so far that now he did not know how to say it.

And so the plans went out to the builders, and in
a little while Kipps was committed to two thousand
five hundred pounds worth of building. But then,
you know, he had an income of twelve hundred a
year.

§8

It is extraordinary what minor difficulties cluster
about house building.

"I say, Ann," remarked Kipps one day, "we shall
'ave to call this little 'ouse by a name. I was thinking

42 2 KIPPSES BK. Ill

of 'Ome Cottage. But I dunno whether 'Ome Cot-
tage is quite the thing like. All these little fisher-
men's places are called Cottages."

"I like cottage," said Ann.

*'It's got eleven bedrooms, d'see," said Kipps. "I
don't see 'ow you can call it a cottage with more bed-
rooms than four. Prop'ly speaking, it's a Large
Villa. Prop'ly, it's almost a Big 'Ouse. Leastways
a 'Ouse."

"Well," said Ann, "if you must call it Villa —
Home Villa. ... I wish it wasn't."

Kipps meditated.

" 'Ow about Eureka Villa?" he said, raising his
voice.

"What's Eureka?"

"It's a name," he said. "There used to be Eureka
Dress Fasteners. There's lots of names, come to
think of it, to be got out of a shop. There's Pyjama
Villa. I remember that in the hosiery. No, come to
think, that wouldn't do. But Maraposa — sort of oat-
meal cloth, that was. . . . No! Eureka's better."

Ann meditated. "It seems silly like to 'ave a name
that don't mean much."

"Perhaps it does," said Kipps. "Though It's what
people 'ave to do."

He became meditative. "I got it I" he cried.

"Not Oreeka !" said Ann.

"No! There used to be a 'ouse at Hastings oppo-
site our school — quite a big 'ouse it was — St. Ann's.
Now that "

CH. I THE HOUSING PROBLEM 423

"No," said Mrs. Kipps with decision. "Thanking
you kindly, but I don't have no butcher boys making
game of me."

They consulted Carshot, who suggested after some
days of reflection, Waddycombe, as a graceful re-
minder of Kipps' grandfather; Old Kipps, who was
for "Upton Manor House," where he had once been
second footman; Buggins,who favoured either a stern
simple number, "Number One" — if there were no
other houses there, or something patriotic, as "Empire
Villa," and Pierce, who inclined to "Sandringham";
but in spite of all this help they were still undecided
when, amidst violent perturbations of the soul, and
after the most complex and diflScult hagglings, wran-
glings, fears, muddles and goings to and fro, Kipps
became the joyless owner of a freehold plot of three-
eighths of an acre, and saw the turf being wheeled
away from the site that should one day be his home.

CHAPTER II

THE CALLERS

The Klppses sat at their midday dinner-table and
amidst the vestiges of rhubarb pie, and discussed two
postcards the one o'clock post had brought. It was
a rare bright moment of sunshine in a wet and windy
day in the March that followed their marriage.
Kipps was attired in a suit of brown, with a tie of
fashionable green, while Ann wore one of those pic-
turesque loose robes that are usually associated with
sandals and advanced ideas. But there weren't any
sandals on Ann or any advanced ideas, and the robe
had come quite recently through the counsels of Mrs.
Sid Pornick. "It's Artlike," said Kipps, giving way.
"It's more comfortable," said Ann. The room
looked out by French windows upon a little patch of
green and the Hythe parade. The parade was all
shiny wet with rain, and the green-grey sea tumbled
and tumbled between parade and sky.

The Kipps' furniture, except for certain chrome
lithographs of Kipps' incidental choice that struck a

424

CH. 11 THE CALLERS 425'

quiet note amidst the wall paper, had been tactfully
forced by an expert salesman, and it was in a style of
mediocre elegance. There was a sideboard of carved
oak that had only one fault, it reminded Kipps at
times of wood-carving, and its panel of bevelled glass
now reflected the back of his head. On its shelf were
two books from Parsons' Library, each with a
"place" marked by a slip of paper; neither of the
Kippses could have told you the title of either book
they read, much less the author's name. There was
an ebonised overmantel set with phials and pots of
brilliant colour, each duplicated by looking-glass, and
bearing also a pair of Chinese jars made in Birming-
ham, a wedding present from Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
Pornick, and several sumptuous Japanese fans. And
there was a Turkey carpet of great richness. In ad-
dition to these modern exploits of Messrs. Bunt and
Bubble, there were two inactive tall clocks, whose ex-
treme dilapidation appealed to the connoisseur; a ter-
restrial and a celestial globe, the latter deeply in-
dented; a number of good old Iron moulded and
dusty books, and a stuffed owl wanting one (easily
replaceable) glass eye, obtained by the exertions of
Uncle Kipps. The table equipage was as much as
possible like Mrs. Bindon Botting's, only more costly,
and in addition there were green and crimson wine
glasses — though the Kippses never drank wine.

Kipps turned to the more legible of his two post-
cards again.

"Unavoidably prevented from seein' me to-day,"

426 KIPPSES BK. Ill

'e says. I like 'is cheek. After I give 'im 'is start
and everything."

He blew.

" 'E certainly treats you a bit orf'and," said Ann.

Kipps gave vent to his dislike of young Walshing-
ham. "He's getting too big for 'is britches," he said.
"I'm beginning to wish she 'ad brought an action for
breach. Ever since '^ said she wouldn't, 'e's seemed
to think I've got no right to spend my own money."

" 'E's never liked your building the 'ouse," said
Ann.

Kipps displayed wrath. "What the goodness 'as
it got to do wiv' 'im?"

"Overman indeed!" he added. "Overmantel!
. . . 'E trys that on with me, I'll tell 'im some-
thing 'e won't like."

He took up the second card. "Dashed if I can
read a word of it. I can jest make out Chit-low at
the end and that's all."

He scrutinised it. "It's like someone in a fit writ-
ing. This here might be W H A T — what.
P R I C E — / got it ! What price Harry now ? It
was a sort of saying of 'is. I expect 'e's either done
something or not done something towards starting
that play, Ann."

"I expect that's about it," said Ann.

Kipps grunted with effort. "I can't read the rest,"
he said at last, "nohow."

A thoroughly annoying post. He pitched the card
on the table, stood up and went to the window, where

CH. II THE CALLERS 427

Ann, after a momentary reconnaisance at Chitter-
low's hieroglyphics, came to join him.

"Wonder what I shall do this afternoon," said
Kipps, with his hands deep in his pockets.

He produced and lit a cigarette.

"Go for a walk, I s'pose," said Ann.

"I been for a walk this morning.

"S'pose I must go for another," he added, after an
interval.

They regarded the windy waste of sea for a space.

"Wonder why it is 'e won't see me," said Kipps,
returning to the problem of young Walshingham.
"It's all lies about 'is being too busy."

Ann offered no solution.

"Rain again!" said Kipps, as the lash of the little
drops stung the window.

"Oo, bother!" said Kipps, "you got to do some-
thing. Look 'ere, Ann ! I'll go orf for a reg'lar
tramp through the rain, up by Saltwood, 'round by
Newington, over the camp, and so 'round and back,
and see 'ow they're getting on about the 'ouse. See?
And look 'ere ! you get Gwendolen to go out a bit
before I come back. If it's still rainy, she can easy
go 'round and see 'er sister. Then we'll 'ave a bit
of tea, with tea cake — all buttery, see? Toce it our-
selves, p'raps. Eh?"

"I dessay I can find something to do in the 'ouse,"
said Ann, considering. "You'll take your mackintosh
and leggin's, I s'pose. You'll get wet without your
mackintosh over those roads."

428 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"Righ-O," said Kipps, and went to ask Gwen-
dolen for his brown leggings and his other pair of
boots.

Things conspired to demoralise Kipps that after-
noon.

When he got outside the house everything looked
so wet under the drive of the southwester that he
abandoned the prospect of the clay lanes towards
Newington altogether, and turned east to Folkestone
along the Seabrook digue. His mackintosh flapped
about him, the rain stung his cheek; for a time he felt
a hardy man. And then as abruptly the rain ceased
and the wind fell, and before he was through Sand-
gate High Street it was a bright spring day. And
there was Kipps in his mackintosh and squeaky leg-
gings, looking like a fool !

Inertia carried him another mile to the Leas, and
there the whole world was pretending there had
never been such a thing as rain — ever. There wasn't
a cloud in the sky; except for an occasional puddle the
asphalt paths looked as dry as a bone. A smartly
dressed man in one of those overcoats that look like
ordinary cloth and are really most deceitfully and
unfairly waterproof, passed him and glanced at the
stiff folds of his mackintosh. "Demn !" said Kipps.
His mackintosh swished against his leggings, his leg-
gings piped and whistled over his boot-tops.

CH. II THE CALLERS 429

"Why do I never get anything right?" Kipps
asked of a bright implacable universe.

Nice old ladies passed him, refined people with
tidy umbrellas, bright, beautiful, supercilious-looking
children. Of course ! the right thing for such a day
as this was a light overcoat and an umbrella. A child
might have known that. He had them at home, but
how could one explain that? He decided to turn
down by the Harvey monument and escape through
Clifton Gardens towards the hills. And thereby he
came upon Coote.

He already felt the most abject and propitiatory
of social outcasts when he came upon Coote, and
Coote finished him. He passed within a yard of
Coote. Coote was coming along towards the Leas,
and when Kipps saw him his legs hesitated about
their office and he seemed to himself to stagger about
all over the footpath. At the sight of him Coote
started visibly. Then a sort of rigor vitae passed
through his frame, his jaw protruded and errant bub-
bles of air seemed to escape and run about beneath
his loose skin. (Seemed I say — I am perfectly well
aware that there is really connective tissue in Coote
as in all of us to prevent anything of the sort.) His
eyes fixed themselves on the horizon and glazed. As
he went by Kipps could hear his even, resolute breath-
ing. He went by, and Kipps staggered on into a
universe of dead cats and dust heaps, rind and ashes
— cut! Cut !

It was part of the inexorable decrees of Proyi-

430 KIPPSES BK. HI

dence that almost immediately afterwards the
residuum of Kipps had to pass a very, very long and
observant-looking girls' school.

Kipps recovered consciousness again on the road
between Shorncliffe Station and Cheriton, though he
cannot remember, indeed to this day he has never
attempted to remember, how he got there. And he
was back at certain thoughts suggested by his last
night's novel reading, that linked up directly with the
pariah-like emotions of these last encounters. The
novel lay at home upon the cheffonier; it was one of
society and politics — there is no need whatever to
give the title or name the author — written with a
heavy-handed thoroughness that overrode any pos-
sibility of resistance on the part of the Kipps mind.
It had crushed all his poor little edifice of ideals, his
dreams of a sensible, unassuming existence, of snug-
ness, of not caring what people said and all the rest
of it, to dust; it had reinstated, squarely and strongly
again, the only proper conception of English social
life. There was a character in the book who trifled
with Art, who was addicted to reading French novels,
who dressed in a loose, careless way, who was a sor-
row to his dignified, silvery-haired, politico-religious
mother, and met the admonitions of bishops with a
front of brass. He treated a "nice girl," to whom
they had got him engaged, badly; he married be-
neath him — some low thing or other. And sank. . .

Kipps could not escape the application of the case.
He was enabled to see how this sort of thing looked

CH.ii THE CALLERS 431

to decent people; he was enabled to gauge the meas-
ure of the penalties due. His mind went from that to
the frozen marble of Coote's visage.

He deserved it!

That day of remorse ! Later it found him coming
upon the site of his building operations and surveying
it in a mood near to despair, his mackintosh over his
arm.

Hardly anyone was at work that day — no doubt
the builders were having him in some obscure man-
ner— and the whole place seemed a dismal and de-
pressing litter. The builder's shed, black-lettered
WiLKiNS, Builder, Hythe, looked like a stranded
thing amidst a cast-up disorder of wheelbarrows and
wheeling planks, and earth and sand and bricks. The
foundations of the walls were trenches full of damp
concrete, drying in patches; the rooms — it was in-
credible they could ever be rooms — were shaped out
as squares and oblongs of coarse, wet grass and sorrel.
They looked absurdly small — dishonestly small.
What could you expect? Of course the builders
were having him, building too small, building all
wrong, using bad materials ! Old Kipps had told
him a wrinkle or two. The builders were having
him, young Walshingham was having him, every-
body was having him ! They were having him and
laughing at him because they didn't respect him.
They didn't respect him because he couldn't do things
right. Who could respect him ? . . .

He was an outcast, he had no place in the world.

432 KIPPSES BK. Ill

He had had his chance in the world and turned his
back on it. He had "behaved badly" — that was the
phrase.

Here a great house was presently to arise, a house
to be paid for, a house neither he nor Ann could
manage — with eleven bedrooms, and four disrespect-
ful servants having them all the time !

How had it all happened exactly?

This was the end of his great fortune ! What a
chance he had had! If he had really carried out his
first intentions and stuck to things, how much better
everything might have been ! If he had got a tutor —
that had' been in his mind originally — a special sort
of tutor to show him everything right; a tutor for
gentlemen of neglected education. If he had read
more and attended better to what Coote had said !

Coote, who had just cut him ! . . .

Eleven bedrooms! What had possessed him?
No one would ever come to see them, no one would
ever have anything to do with them. Even his aunt
cut him ! His uncle treated him with a half-contemp-
tuous sufferance. He had not a friemd worth count-
ing in the world! Buggins, Carshot, Pierce; shop
assistants! The Pornicks — a low socialist lot! He
stood among his foundations like a lonely figure
among ruins; he stood among the ruins of his future,
and owned himself a foolish and mistaken man. He
saw himself and Ann living out their shameful lives
in this great crazy place — as it would be — with
everybody laughing secretly at them and their eleven

CH. II THE CALLERS 433

rooms, and nobody approaching them — nobody nice
and right that is, for ever. And Ann !

What was the matter with Ann ? She'd given up
going for walks lately, got touchy and tearful, been
fitful with her food. Just when she didn't ought to.
It was all a part of the judgment upon wrongdoing,
it was all part of the social penalties that Juggernaut
of a novel had brought home to his mind.

He let himself in with his latchkey. He went
moodily into the dining-room and got out the plans
to look at them. He had a vague hope that there
would prove to be only ten bedrooms. But he found
there were still eleven. He became aware of Ann
standing ovei^him. ''Look 'ere, Artie !" said Ann.

He looked up and found her holding a number of
white oblongs. His eyebrows rose.

"It's Callers," said Ann.

He put his plans aside slowly and took and read
the cards in silence, with a sort of solemnity. Callers
after all ! Then perhaps he wasn't to be left out of
the world after all. Mrs. G. Porrett Smith, Miss
Porrett Smith, Miss Mabel Porrett Smith, and two
smaller cards of the Rev. G. Porrett Smith. "Lor' !"
he said, "Clergy!"

"There was a lady," said Ann, "and two growed-
up gals — all dressed up 1"

"And 'im?"

434 KIPPSES • BK. Ill

"There wasn't no 'im."

"Not ?" He held out the little card.

"No; there was a lady and two young ladies."

"But — these cards ! Wad they go and leave these
two little cards with the Rev. G. Smith on for? Not
if 'e wasn't with 'em."

" 'E wasn't with 'em."

"Not a little chap — dodgin' about be'ind the
others ? And didn't come in ?"

"I didn't see no gentleman with them at all," said
Ann.

"Rum!" said Kipps. A half-forgotten experience
came back to him. "/ know," he said, waving the
reverend gentleman's card; " 'e give 'em the slip,
that's what he'd done. Gone off while they was rap-
ping before you let 'em in. It's a fair call, any'ow."
He felt a momentary base satisfaction at his absence.
"What did they talk about, Ann?"

There was a pause. "I didn't let 'em in," said
Ann.

He looked up suddenly and perceived that some-
thing unusual was the matter with Ann. Her face
was flushed, her eyes were red and hard.

"Didn't let 'em In?"

"No ! They didn't come in at all."

He was too astonished for words.

"I answered the door," said Ann; "I'd been up-
stairs 'namelling the floor. 'Ow was I to think about
Callers, Artie? We ain't never 'ad Callers all the
time we been 'ere. I'd sent Gwendolen out for a

CH. II THE CALLERS 435

bref of fresh air, and there I was upstairs 'namelling
that floor she done so bad, so's to get it done before
she came back. I thought I'd 'namel that floor and
then get tea and 'ave it quiet with you, toce and all,
before she came back. 'Ow was I to think about
Callers?"

She paused. "Well," said Kipps, "what them?"

"They came and rapped. 'Ow was I to know? I
thought it was a tradesman or something. Never
took my apron off, never wiped the 'namel off my
'ands — nothing. There they was !"

She paused again. She was getting to the dis-
agreeable part.

"Wad they say?" said Kipps.

"She says, 'Is Mrs. Kipps at home?' See? To
me."

"Yes."

"And me all painty and no cap on and nothing,
neither missis nor servant like. There, Artie, I could
'a sunk through the floor with shame, I really could.
I could 'ardly get my voice. I couldn't think of
nothing to say but just 'Not at 'Ome,' and out of
'abit like I 'eld the tray. And they give me the
cards and went, and 'ow I shall ever look that lady
in the face again I don't know. . . . And that's
all about it, Artie ! They looked me up and down,
they did, and then I shut the door on 'em."

"Goo!" said Kipps.

Ann went and poked the fire needlessly with a pas-
sion quivering hand.

436 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"I wouldn't 'ave 'ad that 'appen for five pounds,"
said Kipps. "A clergyman and all!"

Ann dropped the poker into the fender with some
eclat and stood up and looked at her hot face in the
glass. Kipps' disappointment grew. "You did ought
to 'ave known better than that, Ann ! You reely
did."

He sat forward, cards in hand, with a deepening
sense of social disaster. The things were laid upon
the table, toast sheltered under a cover, at mid
fender, the teapot warmed beside it, and the kettle
just lifted from the hob, sang amidst the coals. Ann
glanced at him for a moment, then stooped with the
kettle-holder to wet the tea.

"Tcha !" said Kipps, with his mental state develop-
ing.

"I don't see it's any use getting in a state about it
now," said Ann.

"Don't you? I do. See? 'Ere's these people,
good people, want to 'sociate with us, and 'ere you
go and slap 'em in the face!"

"I didn't slap 'em in the face."

"You do — practically. You slams the door in their
face, and that's all we see of 'em ever. I wouldn't
'ave 'ad this 'appen not for a ten-pound note."

He rounded his regrets with a grunt. For a while
there was silence, save for the little stir of Ann's
movements preparing the tea.

"Tea, Artie," said Ann, handing him a cup.

Kipps took it.

en. II THE CALLERS 437

"I put sugar once/' said Ann.

"Oo, dash it! Oo cares?" said Kipps, taking an
extraordinarily large additional lump with fury quiv-
ering fingers, and putting his cup with a slight excess
of force on the recess cupboard. "Oo cares?

"1 wouldn't 'ave 'ad that 'appen," he said, bidding
steadily against accomplished things, "for twenty
pounds."

He gloomed in silence through a long minute or so.

Then Ann said the fatal thing that exploded him.
"Artie !" she said.

"What?"

"There's Buttud Toce down there ! By your foot!"

There was a pause, husband and wife regarded one
another,

"Buttud Toce !" he said. "You go and mess up
them callers and then you try and stuff me up with
Buttud Toce! Buttud Toce indeed! 'Ere's our first
chance of knowing anyone that's at all fit to 'sociate

with . Look 'ere, Ann ! Tell you what it is —

you got to return that call."

"Return that call!"

"Yes, you got to return that call. That's what you

got to do ! I know He waved his arm vaguely

towards the miscellany of books in the recess. "It's
in Manners and Rools of Good S'ity. You got to
find jest 'ow many cards to leave and you got to go
and leave 'em. See?"

Ann's face expressed terror. "But, Artie, 'ow
can I?"

438 KIPPSES BK. Ill

" 'Ow can you? 'Ow could you? You got to do
it, any'ow. They won't know you — not in your Bond
Street 'at! If they do, they won't say nothing."

His voice assumed a note of entreaty. "You mus',
Ann."

"I can't."

"You mus'."

"I can't and I won't. Anything in reason I'll do,
but face those people again I can't — after what 'as
'appened."

"You won't?"

"No!" . . .

"So there they go — orf ! And we never see them
again ! And so it goes on ! So it goes on ! We
don't know nobody and we shan't know anybody!
And you won't put yourself out not a little bit, or
take the trouble to find out anything 'ow it ought to
be done."

Terrible pause.

"I never ought to 'ave merried you, Artie, that's
the troof."

"Oh ! don't go into that."

"I never ought to 'ave merried you, Artie. I'm
not equal to the position. If you 'adn't said you'd
drown yourself " She choked.

"I don' see why you shouldn't try, Ann. I'ze im-
proved. Why don't you? 'Stead of which you go
sending out the servant and 'namelling floors, and
then when visitors come "

" 'Ow was / to know about y'r old visitors?" cried

CH. II THE CALLERS 439

Ann in a wail, and suddenly got up and fled from
amidst their ruined tea, the tea of which "toce, all
buttery," was to be the crown and glory.

Kipps watched her with a momentary consterna-
tion. Then he hardened his heart. "Ought to 'ave
known better," he said, "goin' on like that I" He
remained for a space rubbing his knees and mutter-
ing. He emitted scornfully: "I carn't an' I won't."
He saw her as the source of all his shames.

Presently, quite mechanically, he stooped down
and lifted the flowery china cover. "Ter dash 'er
Buttud Toce !" he shouted at the sight of it, and
clapped the cover down again hard.

When Gwendolen came back she perceived things
were in a slightly unusual poise, Kipps sat by the
fire in a rigid attitude reading a casually selected
volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Ann
was upstairs and inaccessible — to reappear at a later
stage with reddened eyes. Before the fire and still in
a perfectly assimilable condition was what was evi-
dently an untouched supply of richly buttered toast
under a cracked cover.

"They've 'ad a bit of a tifi:," said Gwendolen, at-
tending to her duties in the kitchen, with her outdoor
hat still on and her mouth full. "They're rummuns
— if ever ! My eye !"

And she took another piece of Ann's generousV
buttered toast.

440 KIPPSES BK. Ill

§4

The KIppses spoke no more that day to one an-
other.

The squabble about cards and buttered toast was
as serious to them as the most rational of differences.
It was all rational to them. Their sense of wrong
burnt within them ; their sense of what was owing to
themselves, the duty of implacability, the obstinacy
of pride. In the small hours KIpps lay awake at
the nadir of unhappiness and came near groaning.
He saw life as an extraordinarily desolating muddle;
his futile house, his social discredit, his bad behaviour
to Helen, his low marriage to Ann.

He became aware of something irregular In Ann's
breathing.

He listened. She was awake and quietly and pri-
vately sobbing !

He hardened his heart; resolutely he hardened his
heart.

The stupid little tragedies of these clipped and lim-
ited lives !

What Is the good of keeping up the idyllic sham
and pretending that Ill-educated, misdirected people
"get along very well," and that all this is harmlessly
funny and nothing more? You think I'm going to
write fat, silly, grinning novels about half-educated,
under-trained people and keep it up all the time, that
the whole thing's nothing but funny !

CH. II THE CALLERS 441

As I think of them lying unhappily there in the
darkness, my vision pierces the night. See what I
can see! Above them, brooding over them, I tell
you there is a monster, a lumpish monster, like some
great, clumsy griffin thing, like the Crystal Palace
labyrinthodon, like Coote, like the leaden goddess
Dulness Pope Abhorred, like some fat, proud flunkey,
like pride, like indolence, like all that is darkening
and heavy and obstructive in life. It is matter and
darkness, it is the anti-soul. Stupidity. My Kippses
live in its shadow. Shalford and his apprenticeship
system, the Hastings Academy, the ideas of Coote,
the ideas of the old Kippses, all the ideas that have
made Kipps what he is, all these are its shadow. But
for that monster they might not be groping among
false ideas and hurt one another so sorely and so stu-
pidly; but for that, the glowing promise of childhood
and youth might have had a happier fruition,
thought might have awakened in them to meet the
thought of the world, the quickening sunshine of
literature pierced to the substance of their souls, their
lives might not have been divorced, as now they are
divorced for ever, from the apprehension of beauty
that we favoured ones are given — the vision of the
Grail that makes life fine for ever. I have laughed,
and I laugh at these two people; I have sought to
make you laugh.

But I see through the darkness the souls of my
Kippses, as they are, as little pink strips of living
stuff, like the bodies of little, ill-nourished, ailing,

442 KIPPSES BK. Ill

ignorant children, children who feel pain, who are
naughty and muddled and suffer and do not under-
stand why. And the claw of this Beast rests upon
theml

CHAPTER III

TERMINATIONS
§1

Next morning came a remarkable telegram from
Folkestone. "Please come at once, urgent, Walsh-
ingham," said the telegram, and Kipps, after an agi-
tated but still ample breakfast, departed.

When he returned his face was very white and
his countenance disordered. He let himself in with
his latchkey and came into the dining-room where
Ann sat, affecting to work at a little thing she called
a bib. She heard his hat fall in the hall before he
entered, as though he had missed the peg. "I got
something to tell you, Ann," he said, disregarding
their overnight quarrel, and went to the hearthrug
and took hold of the mantel, and stared at Ann as
though the sight of her was novel.

"Well?" said Ann, not looking up and working
a little faster.

♦"E'sgonel"

443

444 KIPPSES BK. Ill

Ann looked up sharply and her hands stopped.
^^ Who's gone?" For the first time she perceived
Kipps' pallor.

"Young Walshingham — I saw 'er and she tole
me.

"Gone? What d'you mean ?"

"Cleared out! Gone off for good!"

"What for?"

"For 'is 'ealth," said Kipps, with sudden bitter-
ness. " 'E's been speckylating. He's speckylated
our money and 'e's speckylated their money, and now
'e's took 'is 'ook. That's all about it, Ann."
1 ou mean .'*

"I mean 'e's orf and our twenty-four thousand's
orf, too ! And 'ere we are ! Smashed up ! That's
all about it, Ann." He panted.

Ann had no vocabulary for such an occasion. "Oh,
Lor' !" she said, and sat still.

Kipps came about and stuck his hands deeply in
his trouser pockets. "Speckylated every penny —
lorst it all — and gorn."

Even his lips were white.

"You mean we ain't got nothin' left, Artie?"

"Not a penny! Not a bloomin' penny, Ann.
No!"

A gust of passion whirled across the soul of Kipps.
He flung out a knuckly fist. "If I 'ad 'im 'ere," he
said, "I'd — I'd — I'd wring 'is neck for 'im. I'd —

I'd " His voice rose to a shout. He thought

of Gwendolen in the kitchen and fell to "Ugh !"

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 445

"But, Artie," said Ann, trying to grasp it, "d'you
mean to say he's took our money?"

"Speckylated it!" said Kipps, with an illustrative
flourish of the arm, that failed to illustrate. "Bort
things dear and sold 'em cheap, and played the
'ankey-pankey jackass with everything we got.
That's what I mean 'e's done, Ann." He repeated
this last sentence with the addition of violent ad-
verbs."

"D'you mean to say our money's gojie, Artie?"

"Ter-dash it. Yes, Ann!" swore Kipps, exploding
In a shout. "Ain't I tellin' you?"

He was immediately sorry. "I didn't mean to
'oiler at you, Ann," he said, "but I'm all shook up.
I don't 'ardly know what I'm sayin'. Ev'ry pen-
ny." . . .

"But, Artie "

Kipps grunted. He went to the window and
stared for a moment at a sunlit sea. "Gord!" he
swore.

"I mean," he said, coming back to Ann and with
an air of exasperation, "that he's 'bezzled and 'ooked
It. That's what I mean, Ann."

Ann put down the bib. "But wot are we going to
do, Artie?"

Kipps indicated ignorance, wrath and despair with
one comprehensive gesture of his hands. He caught
an ornament from the mantel and replaced it. "I'm
going to bang about," he said, "If I ain't precious
careful."

446 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"You saw Vr, you say?"

"Yes."

"What did she say 'xactly ?" said Ann.

"Told me to see a s'licitor — tole me to get some-
one to 'elp me at once. She was there in black — like
she used to be — and speaking cool and careful-like.
'Elen ! . . . She's precious 'ard, is 'Elen. She
looked at me straight. 'It's my fault,' she said, 'I
ought to 'ave warned you. . . . Only under the
circumstances it was a little difficult.' Straight as any-
thing. I didn't 'ardly say anything to 'er. I didn't
seem to begin to take it in until she was showing me
out. I 'adn't anything to say. Jest as well, perhaps.
She talked like a call a'most. She said — what was it
she said about her mother? 'My mother's overcome
with grief,' she said, 'so naturally everything comes
on me.' "

"And she told you to get someone to 'elp you?"

"Yes. I been to old Bean."

"O'Bean?"

"Yes. What I took my business away from !"

"What did he say?"

"He was a bit off'and at first, but then 'e come
'round. He couldn't tell me anything till 'e knew
the facts. What I know of young Walshingham,
there won't be much 'elp in the facts. No!"

He reflected for a space. "It's a smash-up, Ann.
More likely than not, Ann, 'e's left us over'ead
in debt. We got to get out of it just 'ow we
can. . . .

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 447

"We got to begin again," he went on. " 'Ow, I
don't know. All the way 'ome my 'ead's been going.
We got to get a living some'ow or other. 'Aving
time to ourselves, and a bit of money to spend,
and no hurry and worry, it's all over for
ever, Ann. We was fools, Ann. We didn't know
our benefits. We been caught. Gord!
Gord!"

He was on the verge of "banging about" again.

They heard a jingle in the passage, the large soft
impact of a servant's indoor boots. As if she were a
part, a mitigatory part of Fate, came Gwendolen to
lay the midday meal. Kipps displayed self-control
forthwith. Ann picked up the bib again and bent
over it, and the Kippses bore themselves gloomily
perhaps, but not despairfully, while their dependant
was in the room. She spread the cloth and put out
the cutlery with a slow inaccuracy, and Kipps, after
a whisper to himself, went again to the window. Ann
got up and put away her work methodically in the
cheffonier.

"When I think," said Kipps, as soon as the door
closed again behind Gwendolen, "when I think of
the 'ole people and 'aving to tell 'em of it all — I want
to smesh my 'ead against the nearest wall. Smesh
my silly brains out! And Buggins — Buggins what
I'd 'arf promised to start in a lill' outfitting shop in
Rendezvous Street."

Gwendolen returned and restored dignity.

The midday meal sgread itself slowly before

448 KIPPSES BK. Ill

them. Gwendolen, after her custom, left the door
open and Kipps closed it carefully before sitting
down.

He stood for a moment, regarding the meal doubt-
fully.

"I don't feel as if I could swaller a moufful," he
said.

"You got to eat," said Ann. . . .

For a time they said little, and once swallowing
was achieved, ate on with a sort of melancholy appe-
tite. Each was now busy thinking.

"After all," said Kipps, presently, "whatever 'ap-
pens, they can't turn us out or sell us up before nex'
quarter-day. I'm pretty sure about that."

"Sell us up!" said Ann.

"I dessey we're bankrup'," said Kipps, trying to
say it easily and helping himself with a trembling
hand to unnecessary potatoes.

Then a long silence. Ann ceased to eat, and there
were silent tears.

"More potatoes, Artie?" choked Ann.

"I couldn't," said Kipps. "No."

He pushed back his plate, which was indeed re-
plete with potatoes, got up and walked about the
room. Even the dinner-table looked distraught and
unusual.

"What to do, I don't know," he said.

"Oh, Lord!'* he ejaculated, and picked up and
slapped down a book.

Then his eye fell upon another postcard that had

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 449

come from Chitterlow by the morning's post, and
which now lay by him on the mantel-shelf. He took
it up, glanced at its imperfectly legible message, and
put it down.

"Delayed!" he said, scornfully. "Not prodooced
in the smalls. Or is it smells 'e says? 'Ow can one
understand that? Any'ow 'e's 'umbugging again.
Somefing about the Strand. No! Well,
'e's 'ad all the money 'e'll ever get out of me ! . .
I'm done."

He seemed to find a momentary relief in the dra-
matic effect of his announcement. He came near to a
swagger of despair upon the hearthrug, and then
suddenly came and sat down next to Ann and rested
his chin on the knuckles of his two clenched hands.

"I been a fool, Ann," he said in a gloomy mono-
tone. "I been a brasted fool. But It's 'ard on us,
all the same. It's 'ard."

" 'Ow was you to know?" said Ann.

"I ought to 'ave known. I did In a sort of way
know. And 'ere we are ! I wouldn't care so much
if it was myself, but It's yoii, Ann ! 'Ere we are !

Regular smashed up ! And you " He checked

at an unspeakable aggravation of their disaster. "I
knew 'e wasn't to be depended upon and there I left
It ! And you got to pay. . . . What's to 'appen
to us all, I don't know."

He thrust out his chin and glared at fate.

" 'Ow do you know 'e's speckylated everything?"
said Ann, after a silent survey of him.

450 KIPPSES BK. Ill

" 'E 'as," said Kipps, irritably, holding firm to
disaster.

"She say so?"

"She don't know, of course, but you depend upon
it that's it. She told me she knew something was
on, and when she found 'im gone and a note lef for
her she knew it was up with 'im. 'E went by the
night boat. She wrote that telegram off to me
straight away."

Ann surveyed his features with tender, perplexed
eyes; she had never seen him so white and drawn
before, and her hand rested an inch or so away from
his arm. The actual loss was still, as it were, afar
from her. The immediate thing was his enormous
distress.

" 'Ow do you know ?" she said and stopped.

It would irritate him too much.

Kipps' imagination was going headlong.

"Sold up !" he emitted presently, and Ann flinched.

"Going back to work, day after day — I can't stand
it, Ann, I can't. And you "

"It don't do to think of it," said Ann.

Presently he came upon a resolv^e. "I keep on
thinking of it, and thinking of it, and what's to be
done and what's to be done. I shan't be any good
'ome s'arfernoon. It keeps on going 'round and
'round in my 'ead, and 'round and 'round. I better
go for a walk or something. I'd be no comfort to
you, Ann. I should want to 'owl and 'ammer things
if I 'ung about 'ome. My fingers is all atwitch. I

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 451

shall keep on thinking 'ow I might 'ave stopped it
and callin' myself a fool."

He looked at her between pleading and shame. It
seemed like deserting her.

Ann regarded him with tear-dimmed eyes.

"You'd better do what's good for you, Artie," she
said. . . . "77/ be best cleaning. It's no use
sending off Gwendolen before her month, and the top
room wants turning out." She added with a sort of
grim humour: "May as well turn it out now while I
got it."

"I better go for a walk," said Kipps.

And presently our poor exploded Kipps was march-
ing out to bear his sudden misery. Habit turned
him up the road towards his growing house, and then
suddenly he perceived his direction — "Oh, Lor' !" —
and turned aside and went up the steep way to the
hill crest and the Sandling Road, and over the line
by that tree-embowered Junction, and athwart the
wide fields towards Postling — a little, black, march-
ing figure — and so up the Downs and over the hills,
whither he had never gone before.

He came back long after dark, and Ann met him
in the passage.

"Where you been, Artie?" she asked, with a
strained note in her voice.

452 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"I been walking and walking — trying to tire my-
self out. All the time I been thinking what shall I
do. Trying to fix something up all out of nothing."

"I didn't know you meant to be out all this time."

Kipps was gripped by compunction.

"I can't think what we ought to do," he said,
presently.

"You can't do anything much, Artie, not till you
hear from Mr. Bean."

"No; I can't do anything much. That's jest it.
And all this time I keep feelin' if I don't do some-
thing the top of my 'ead'll bust. . . . Been try-
ing to make up advertisements 'arf the time I been
out — 'bout finding a place, good salesman and stock-
keeper, and good Manchester dresses, window-dress-
ing— Lor' ! Fancy that all beginning again ! . . .
If you went to sta) with Sid a bit — if I sent every
penny I got to you — I dunno ! I dunno !"

When they had gone to bed there was an elaborate
attempt to get to sleep. ... In one of their great
waking pauses Kipps remarked in a muffled tone: "I
didn't mean to frighten you, Ann, being out so late. I
kep' on walking and walking, and some'ow it seemed
to do me good. I went out to the 'illtop ever so far
beyond Stanford, and sat there ever so long, and it
seemed to make me better. Just looking over the
marsh like, and seeing the sun set."

"Very likely," said Ann, after a long interval, "it
isn't so bad as you think it is, Artie."

"It's bad," said Kipps.

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 453

"Very likely, after all, it isn't quite so bad. If
there's only a little "

There came another long silence.

"Ann," said Kipps in the quiet darkness.

"Yes," said Ann.

"Ann," said Kipps, and stopped as though he had
hastily shut a door upon speech.

"I kep' thinking," he said, trying again, "I kep'

thinking — after all — I been cross to you and a fool

about things — about them cards, Ann ; but" — his

voice shook to pieces — "we ^ave been 'appy, Ann

some'ow .... togever."

And with that he and then she fell into a passion
of weeping. They clung very tightly together —
closer than they had been since ever the first bright-
ness of their married days turned to the grey of com-
mon life again.

All the disaster in the world could not prevent their
going to sleep at last with their poor little troubled
heads close together on one pillow. There was noth-
ing more to be done, there was nothing more to be
thought ; Time might go on with his mischiefs, but
for a little while at least they still had one another.

Kipps returned from his second interview with
Mr. Bean in a state of strange excitement. He let
himself in with his latch-key and slammed the door.
"Ann!" he shouted, in an unusual note; "Ann!"

454 KIPPSES BK. Ill

Ann replied distantly.

"Something to tell you," said Kipps; "something
noo!"

Ann appeared apprehensive from the kitchen,

"Ann," he said, going before her into the little
dining-room, for his news was too dignified for the
passage, "very likely, Ann, o' Bean says, we shall

'ave " He decided to prolong the suspense.

"Guess!"

"I can't, Artie."

"Think of a lot of money!"

"A 'undred pounds p'raps?"

He spoke with immense deliberation. "O vera
fousand pounds!"

Ann stared and said nothing, only went a shade
whiter.

"Over, he said. A'most certainly over."

He shut the dining-room door and came forward
hastily, for Ann, it was clear, meant to take this miti-
gation of their disaster with a complete abandon-
ment of her self-control. She came near flopping;
she fell into his arms.

"Artie," she got to at last and began to weep,
clinging tightly to him.

"Pretty near certain," said Kipps, holding her.
"A fousand pounds!"

"I said, Artie," she wailed on his shoulder with the
note of accumulated wrongs, "very likely it wasn't so
bad." . . .

"There's things," he said, when presently he came

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 455

to particulars, " 'e couldn't touch. The noo place!
It's freehold and paid for, and with the bit of build-
ing on it, there's five or six 'undred pound p'raps —
say worf free 'undred, for safety. We can't be sold
up to finish it, like we thought. O' Bean says we can
very likely sell it and get money. 'E says you often
get a chance to sell a 'ouse lessen 'arf done, 'specially
free'old. Very likely, 'e say. Then there's Hughen-
den. Hughenden 'asn't been mortgaged not for
more than 'arf its value. There's a 'undred or so to
be got on that, and the furniture and the rent for the
summer still coming in. 'E says there's very likely
other things. A fousand pounds, that's what 'e said.
'E said it might even be more."

They were sitting now at the table.

"It alters everything," said Ann.

"I been thinking that, Ann, all the way 'ome. I
came in the motor car. First ride I've 'ad since the
smash. We needn't send off Gwendolen, leastways
not till after. You know. We needn't turn out of
'ere — not for a long time. What we been doing for
the o' people we can go on doing a'most as much.
And your mother ! . . . I wanted to 'oiler com-
ing along. I pretty near run coming down the road
by the hotel."

"Oh, I am glad we can stop 'ere and be comfort-
able a bit," said Ann. "I afu glad for that."

"I pretty near told the driver on the motor — only
'e was the sort won't talk. . . . You see, Ann,
we'll be able to start a shop, we'll be able to get into

456 KIPPSES BK. Ill

something like. All about our 'aving to go back, to
places and that; all that doesn't matter any more."

For a while they abandoned themselves to ejacu-
lating transports. Then they fell talking to shape
an idea to themselves of the new prospect that opened
before them.

"We must start a sort of shop," said Kipps, whose
imagination had been working. "It'll 'ave to be a
shop."

"Drapery?" said Ann.

"You want such a lot of capital for the drapery,
mor'n a thousand pounds you want by a long way —
to start it anything like proper."

"Well, outfitting. Like Buggins was going to do."

Kipps glanced at that for a moment, because the
idea had not occurred to him. Then he came back
to his prepossession.

"Well, I thought of something else, Ann," he said.
"You see, I've always thought a little book-shop. It
isn't like the drapery — 'aving to be learnt. I thought
— even before this smash-up — 'ow I'd like to 'ave
something to do, instead of always 'aving 'olidays
always like we 'ave been 'aving."

He reflected.

"You don't know much about books, do you,
Artie?"

"You don't want to." He illustrated. "I noticed
when we used to go to that Lib'ry at Folkestone,
ladies weren't anything like what they was in a dra-
per's— if you 'aven't got just what they want it's 'Oh,

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 457

no !' and out they go. But In a book shop It's differ-
ent. One book's very like another — after all, what
Is It? Something to read and done with. It's not a
thing that matters like print dresses or serviettes —
where you either like 'em or don't, and people judge
you by. They take what you give 'em In books and
llb'ries, and glad to be told what to. See 'ow we was
— up at that llb'ry." ...

He paused. "You see, Ann

"Well, I read 'n 'dvertlsement the other day. I
been asking Mr. Bean. It said — five 'undred
pounds."

"What did?"

"Branches," said Kipps.

Ann failed to understand. "It's a sort of thing
that gets up book shops all over the country," said
Kipps. "I didn't tell you, but I arst about It a bit.
On'y I dropped it again. Before this smash, I mean.
I'd thought I'd like to keep a shop for a lark, on'y
then I thought it silly. Besides It 'ud 'ave been be-
neath me."

He blushed vividly. "It was a sort of projek of
mine, Ann.

"On'y It wouldn't 'ave done," he added.

It was a tortuous journey when the KIppses set
out to explain anything to each other. But through
a maze of fragmentary elucidations and questions,
their minds did presently begin to approximate to a
picture of a compact, bright, little shop, as a frame-
work for themselves.

458 KIPPSES BK. Ill

"I thought of It one day when I was In Folkestone.
I thought of It one day when I was looking in at a
window. I see a chap dressin' a window and he was
whistlin' reg'lar light-'arted. ... I thought then
I'd hke to keep a bookshop, any'ow, jest for some-
thing to do. And when people weren't about, then
you could sit and read the books. See? It wouldn't
be 'arf bad." . . .

They mused, each with elbows on table and
knuckles to lips, looking with speculative eyes at each
other.

"Very likely we'll be 'appler than we should 'ave
been with more money," said Kipps presently.

"We wasn't 'ardly suited," reflected Ann, and left
her sentence Incomplete.

"Fish out of water like," said Kipps.

"You won't 'ave to return that call now," said
Kipps, opening a new branch of the question.
"That's one good thing."

"Lor' !" said Ann, visibly brightening, "no more I
shan't!"

"I don't s'pose they'd want you to, even If you did
— with things as they are."

A certain added brightness came Into Ann's face.
"Nobody won't be able to come leaving cards on us,
Artie, now, any more. We are out of that!"

"There Isn't no necessity for us to be stuck up,"
said Kipps, "any more for ever! 'Ere we are, Ann,
common people, with jest no position at all, as you
might say, to keep up. No sev'nts, not If you don't

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 459

like. No dressin' better than other people. If it
wasn't we been robbed — dashed if I'd care a rap
about losing that money. I b'lieve" — his face shone
with the rare pleasure of paradox — "I reely b'lieve,
Ann, it'll prove a savin' in the end."

The remarkable advertisement which had fired
Kipps' imagination with this dream of a bookshop
opened out in the most alluring way. It was one
little facet in a comprehensive scheme of transatlantic
origin, which was to make our old-world methods of
book-selling "sit up," and it displayed an imaginative
briskness, a lucidity and promise that aroused the
profoundest scepticism in the mind of Mr. Bean. To
Kipps' renewed investigations it presented itself in
an expository illustrated pamphlet (far too well
printed, Mr. Bean thought, for a reputable under-
taking) of the most convincing sort. Mr. Bean
would not let him sink his capital in shares in its pro-
jected company that was to make all things new in
the world of books, but he could not prevent Kipps
becoming one of their associated booksellers. And
so when presently it became apparent that an epoch
was not to be made, and the "Associated Booksellers'
Trading Union (Limited)" receded and dissolved
and liquidated (a few drops) and vanished and went
away to talk about something else, Kipps remained

46o KIPPSES BK. Ill

floating undamaged in this Interestingly uncertain
universe as an independent bookseller.

Except that it failed, the Associated Booksellers'
Trading Union had all the stigmata of success. Its
fault, perhaps, was that it had them all instead of
only one or two. It was to buy wholesale for all its
members and associates and exchange stock, having
a common books-in-stock list and a common lending
library, and it was to provide a uniform registered
shop front to signify all these things to the intelligent
passer-by. Except that it was controlled by buoyant
young Over-men with a touch of genius in their arith-
metic, it was, I say, a most plausible and hopfeul A^lc-f.
project. Kipps Vv-ent several times to London and an
agent came to Hythe; Mr. Bean made some timely
interventions, and then behind a veil of planks and
an announcement in the High Street, the uniform
registered shop front came rapidly into being. "As-
sociated Booksellers' Trading Union," said this shop
front, in a refined, artistic lettering that bookbuyers
were going to value, as wise men over forty value the
proper label for Berncasteler Doctor, and then, "Ar-
thur Kipps."

Next to starting a haberdasher's shop I doubt if
Kipps could have been more truly happy than during
those weeks of preparation.

There is, of course, nothing on earth, and I doubt
at times if there is a joy in Heaven, like starting a
small haberdasher's shop. Imagine, for example,
having a drawerful of tapes (one whole piece most

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 461

exquisitely blocked of every possible width of tape),
or, again, an army of neat, large packages, each dis-
playing one sample of hooks and eyes. Think of
your cottons, your drawer of coloured silks, the little,
less, least of the compartments and thin packets of
your needle drawer ! Poor princes and wretched
gentlefolk mysteriously above retail trade, may taste
only the faint unsatisfactory shadow of these delights
with trays of stamps or butterflies. I write, of course,
for those to whom these things appeal; there are
clods alive who see nothing, or next to nothing, in
spools of mercerised cotton and endless bands of
paper-set pins. 1 write for the wise, and as I write I
wonder that Kipps resisted haberdashery. He did.
Yet even starting a bookshop is at least twenty times
as interesting as building your own house to your own
design in unlimited space and time, or any possible
thing people with indisputable social position and
sound securities can possibly find to do. Upon that
I rest.

You figure Kipps "going to have a look to see how
the little shop is getting on," the shop that is not to
be a loss and a spending of money, but a gain. He
does not walk too fast towards it; as he comes into
view of it his paces slacken and his head goes to one
side. He crosses to the pavement opposite in order to
inspect the fascia better, already his name is adum-
brated in faint white lines; stops in the middle of the
road and scrutinises imaginary details for the benefit
of his future next door neighbour, the curiosity-shop

462 KIPPSES BK. Ill

man, and so at last, in. ... A smell of paint
and of the shavings of imperfectly seasoned pine-
wood ! The shop is already glazed and a carpenter
is busy over the fittings for adjustable shelves in the
side windows. A painter is busy on the fixtures
round about (shelving above and drawers below),
which are to accommodate most of the stock, and the
counter — the counter and desk are done. Kipps goes
inside the desk, the desk which is to be the strategic
centre of the shop, brushes away some sawdust, and
draws out the marvellous till ; here gold is to be, here
silver, here copper — notes locked up in a cash-box in
the well belov/. Then he leans his elbows on the
desk, rests his chin on his fist and fills the shelves with
imaginary stock; books beyond reading. Every day
a man who cares to wash his hands and read uncut
pages artfully may have his cake and eat it, among
that stock. Under the counter to the right, paper
and string are to lurk ready to leap up and embrace
goods sold; on the table to the left, art publications,
whatever they may prov^e to be ! He maps it out,
serves an Imaginary customer, receives a dream seven
and six pence, packs, bows out. He wonders how it
was he ever came to fancy a shop a disagreeable
place.

"It's different," he says at last, after musing on
that difficulty, "being your own."

It is different.

Or, again, you figure Kipps with something of the
air of a young sacristan, handling his brightly vir-

en. Ill TERMINATIONS 463

ginal account-books, and looking, and looking again,
and then still looking, at an unparalleled specimen
of copperplate engraving, ruled money below and
above, bearing the words "In Account with, Arthur
Kipps*' (loud flourishes), "The Booksellers' Trading
Union" (temperate decoration). You figure Ann
sitting and stitching at one point of the circumference
of the light of the lamp, stitching queer little gar-
ments for some unknown stranger, and over against
her sits Kipps. Before him is one of those engraved
memorandum forms, a moist pad, wet with some
thick and greasy greenish purple ink that is also
spreading quietly but steadily over his fingers, a cross-
nibbed pen for first-aid surgical assistance to the pa-
tient in his hand, a dating rubber stamp. At inter-
vals he brings down this latter with great care and
emphasis upon the paper, and when he lifts it there
appears a beautiful oval design of which "Paid, Ar-
thur Kipps, The Associated Booksellers' Trading
Union," and a date, are the essential ingredients,
stamped in purple ink.

Anon he turns his attention to a box of small,
round, yellow labels, declaring "This book was
bought from the Associated Booksellers' Trading
Union." He licks one with deliberate care, sticks
it on the paper before him and defaces it with great
solemnity. "I can do it, Ann," he says, looking up
brightly. For the Associated Booksellers' Trading
Union, among other brilliant notions and inspira-
tions, devised an ingenious system of taking back its

464 KIPPSES BK. Ill

books again in part payment for new ones within a
specified period. When it failed, all sorts of people
were left with these unredeemed pledges in hand.

§5

Amidst all this bustle and interest, all this going
to and fro before they "moved in" to the High Street,
came the great crisis that hung over the Kippses, and
one morning in the small hours Ann's child was
born.

Kipps was coming to manhood swiftly now. The
once rabbit-like soul that had been so amazed by the
discovery of "chubes" in the human interior and so
shocked by the sight of a woman's shoulder-blades,
that had found shame and anguish in a mislaid Gibus
and terror in an Anagram Tea, was at last facing the
greater realities. He came suddenly upon the master
thing in life, birth. He passed through hours of
listening, hours of impotent fear in the night and in
the dawn, and then there was put into his arms some-
thing most wonderful, a weak and wailing creature,
incredibly, heart-stirringly soft and pitiful, with
minute appealing hands that it wrung his heart to see.
He held this miracle in his arms and touched its
tender cheek as if he feared his lips might injure it.
And this marvel was his Son !

And there was Ann, with a greater strangeness and
a greater familiarity in her quality than he had ever
found before. There were little beads of perspira-

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 465

tion on her temples and her lips, and her face was
flushed, not pale as he had feared to see it. She had
the look of one who emerges from some strenuous
and invigorating act. He bent down and kissed her,
and he had no words to say. She wasn't to speak
much yet, but she stroked his arm with her hand and
had to tell him one thing :

"He's over nine pounds, Artie," she whispered.
"Bessie's — Bessie's wasn't no more than eight."

To have given Kipps a pound of triumph over Sid
seemed to her almost to justify Nunc Dimittis. She
watched his face for a moment, then closed her eyes
in a kind of blissful exhaustion as the nurse, with
something motherly in her manner, pushed Kipps out
of the room.

§6

Kipps was far too much preoccupied with his own
life to worry about the further exploits of Chitterlow.
The man had got his two thousand; on the whole
Kipps was glad he had had it rather than young
Walshingham, and there was an end to the matter.
As for the complicated transactions he achieved and
proclaimed by mainly illegible and always incompre-
hensible postcards, they were like passing voices
heard in the street as one goes about one's urgent
concerns. Kipps put them aside and they got in be-
tween the pages of the stock and were lost forever
and sold in with the goods to customers who puzzled
over them mightily.

466 KIPPSES BK.III

Then one morning as he was dusting round before
breakfast, Chitterlow returned, appeared suddenly in
the shop doorway.

Kipps was overcome with amazement.

It was the most unexpected thing in the world.
The man was in evening dress, evening dress in that
singularly crumpled state it assumes after the hour
of dawn, and above his dishevelled red hair, a small-
ish Gibus hat tilted remarkably forward. He opened
the door and stood, tall and spread, with one vast
white glove flung out as if to display how burst a
glove might be, his eyes bright, such wrinkling of
brow and mouth as only an experienced actor can
produce, and a singular radiance of emotion upon his
whole being, an altogether astonishing spectacle.

It was amazing beyond the powers of Kipps. The
bell jangled for a bit and then gave it up and was
silent. For a long, great second everything was
quietly attentive. Kipps was amazed to his uttermost;
had he had ten times the capacity he would still have
been fully amazed. "It's Chit'low!" he said at last,
standing duster in hand.

But he doubted whether it was not a dream.

"Tzit!" gasped that most excitable and extraor-
dinary person, still in an incredibly expanded attitude,
and then with a slight forward jerk of the starry split
glove, "Bif!"

He could say no more. The tremendous speech he
had had ready vanished from his mind. Kipps stared
at his extraordinary facial changes, vaguely conscious

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 467

of the truth of the teachings of Nisbet and Lombroso
concerning men of genius.

Then suddenly Chitterlow's features were con-
vulsed, the histrionic fell from him like a garment,
and he was weeping. He said something indistinct
about "Old Kipps! Good old Kipps ! Oh, old
Kipps!" and somehow he managed to mix a chuckle
and a sob in the most remarkable way. He emerged
from somewhere near the middle of his original at-
titude, a merely life-size creature. "My play, boo-
hoo!" he sobbed, clutching at his friend's arm. "My
play, Kipps ! (sob) You know?"

"Well?" cried Kipps, with his heart sinking In
sympathy, "it ain't "

"No," howled Chitterlcw; "no. It's a success!
My dear chap ! my dear boy ! oh ! It's a — bu — boo-
hoo ! — a big success!" He turned away and wiped
streaming tears with the back of his hand. He
walked a pace or so and turned. He sat down on one
of the specially designed artistic chairs of the Asso-
ciated Booksellers' Trading Union and produced an
exiguous lady's handkerchief, extraordinarily belaced.
He choked. "Afj play," and covered his face here
and there.

He made an unsuccessful effort to control himself,
and shrank for a space to the dimensions of a small
and pathetic creature. His great nose suddenly came
through a careless place in the handkerchief.

"I'm knocked," he said in a muffled voice, and so
remained for a space — ^wonderful — veiled.

468 KIPPSES BK. m

He made a gallant effort to wipe his tears away.
"I had to tell you," he said, gulping.

"Be all right in a minute," he added, "calm," and
sat still.

Kipps stared in commiseration of such success.
Then he heard footsteps and went quickly to the
house doorway. "Jest a minute," he said. "Don't
go in the shop, Ann, for a minute. It's Chitterlow.
He's a bit essited. But he'll be better in a minute.
It's knocked him over a bit. You see" — his voice
sank to a hushed note as one who announces death —
" 'e's made a success with his play."

He pushed her back lest she should see the scandal
of another male's tears.

Soon Chitterlow felt better, but for a little while
his manner was even alarmingly subdued. "I had to
come and tell you," he said. "I had to astonish some-
one. Muriel — she'll be firstrate, of course. But
she's over at Dymchurch." He blew his nose with
enormous noise, and emerged instantly a merely gar-
rulous optimist.

"I expect she'll be precious glad."

"She doesn't know yet, my dear boy. She's at
Dymchurch — with a friend. She's seen some of my
first nights before. . . Better out of it. . . .
I'm going to her now. I've been up all night — talk-
ing to the boys and all that. I'm a bit off it just for a
bit. But — it Knocked 'em. It Knocked everybody."

He stared at the floor and went on In a monotone.
"They laughed a bit at the beginning — but nothing

CH.iii TERMINATIONS 469

like a settled laugh — not until the second act — you
know — the chap with the beetle down his neck.
Little Chisholme did that bit to rights. Then they
began — to rights." His voice warmed and Increased.
"Laughing! It made me laugh! We jumped 'em
into the third act before they had time to cool.
Everybody was on It. I never saw a first night go
so fast. Laugh, laugh, laugh, LAUGH,
LAUGH, LAUGH" (he howled the last
word with stupendous violence). Everything they
laughed at. They laughed at things that we hadn't
meant to be funny — not for one moment. Bif ! BIzz !
Curtain. A Fair Knock-Out ! . . . I went on
— but I didn't say a word. Chisholme did the patter.
Shouting! It was like walking under Niagara —
going across that stage. It was like never having
seen an audience before.

"Then afterwards — the Boys!"

His emotion held him for a space. "Dear old
Boys!" he murmured.

His words multiplied, his importance increased.
In a little while he was restored to something of his
old self. He was enormously excited. He seemed
unable to sit down anywhere. He came Into the
breakfast-room so soon as Kipps was sure of him,
shook hands with Mrs. Kipps parenthetically, sat
down and Immediately got up again. He went to the
bassinette in the corner and looked absentmindedly at
Kipps, junior, and said he was glad if only for the
youngster's sake. He Immediately resumed the

470 KIPPSES BK. Ill

thread of his discourse. . . . He drank a cup
of coffee noisily and walked up and down the room
talking, while they attempted breakfast amidst the
gale of his excitement. The infant slept marvellously
through it all.

"You won't mind my sitting down, Mrs. Kipps. I
couldn't sit down for anyone, or I'd do it for you.
It's you I'm thinking of more than anyone, you and
Muriel, and all Old Pals and Good Friends. It
means wealth, it means money — hundreds and thou-
sands. ... If you'd heard 'em, you'd know."

He was silent through a portentous moment while
topics battled for him and finally he burst and talked
of them all together. It was like the rush of water
when a dam bursts and washes out a fair-sized pro-
vincial town; all sorts of things floated along on the
swirl. For example, he was discussing his future
behaviour. "I'm glad it's come now. Not before.
I've had my lesson. I shall be very discreet now,
trust me. We've learnt the value of money." He
discussed "the possibility of a country house, of taking
a Martello tower as a swimming-box (as one might
say a shooting-box) of living in Venice because of its
artistic associations and scenic possibilities, of a flat
in Westminster or a house in the West End. He
also raised the question of giving up smoking and
drinking, and what classes of drink were especially
noxious to a man of his constitution. But discourses
on all this did not prevent a parenthetical computa-
tion of the probable profits on the supposition of a

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 471

thousand nights here and in America, nor did it
ignore the share Kipps was to have, nor the gladness
with which Chitterlow would pay that share, nor the
surprise and regret with which he had learnt, through
an indirect source which awakened many associations,
of the turpitude of young Walshingham, nor the dis-
taste Chitterlow had always felt for young Walsh-
ingham and men of his type. An excursus upon
Napoleon had got into the torrent somehow and kept
bobbing up and down. The whole thing was thrown
into the form of a single complex sentence, with
parenthetical and subordinate clauses fitting one into
the other like Chinese boxes, and from first to last
it never even had an air of approaching anything in
the remotest degree partaking of the nature of a full
stop.

Into this deluge came the Daily News, like the
gleam of light in Watts' picture, the waters were
assuaged while its sheet was opened, and it had a
column, a whole column, of praise. Chitterlow held
the paper and Kipps read over his left hand, and Ann
under his right. It made the affair more real to
Kipps; it seemed even to confirm Chitterlow against
lurking doubts he had been concealing. But it took
him away. He departed in a whirl, to secure a copy
of every morning paper, every blessed rag there is,
and take them all to Dymchurch and Muriel forth-
with. It had been the send-off the Boys had given
him that had prevented his doing as much at Charing
Cross — let alone that he only caught it by the skin of

472 KIPPSES BK. Ill

his teeth. . . . Besides which the bookstall
wasn't open. His white face, lit by a vast excitement,
bid them a tremendous farewell, and he departed
through the sunlight, with his buoyant walk, buoyant
almost to the tottering pitch. His hair, as one got it
sunlit in the street, seemed to have grown in the night.

They saw him stop a newsboy.

"Every blessed rag," floated to them on the notes
of that gorgeous voice.

The newsboy, too, had happened on luck. Some-
thing like a faint cheer from the newsboy came down
the air to terminate that transaction.

Chitterlow went on his way swinging a great
budget of papers, a figure of merited success. The
newsboy recovered from his emotion with a jerk, ex-
amined something in his hand again, transferred it
to his pocket, watched Chitterlow for a space, and
then in a sort of hushed silence resumed his daily
routine.

Ann and Kipps watched that receding happiness in
silence, until he vanished round the bend of the road.

"I am glad," said Ann at last, speaking with a
little sigh.

"So'm I," said Kipps, with emphasis. "For if
ever a feller 'as worked and waited — it's 'im." . . .

They went back through the shop rather thought-
fully, and after a peep at the sleeping baby, resumed
their interrupted breakfast. "If ever a feller 'as
worked and waited, it's 'im," said Kipps, cutting
bread.

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 473

"Very likely it's true," said Ann, a little wistfully.

"What's true?"

"About all that money coming."

Kipps meditated. "I don't see why it shouldn't
be," he decided, and handed Ann a piece of bread on
the tip of his knife.

"But we'll keep on the shop," he said after an in-
terval for further reflection, "all the same.
I 'aven't much trust in money after the things we've
seen."

§7

That was two years ago, and as the whole world
knows, the "Pestered Butterfly" is running still. It
was true. It has made the fortune of a once declin-
ing little theatre in the Strand, night after night the
great beetle scene draws happy tears from a house
packed to repletion, and Kipps — for all that Chitter-
low is not what one might call a business man — is
almost as rich as he was in the beginning. People in
Australia, people in Lancashire, Scotland, Ireland,
in New Orleans, in Jamaica, in New York and Mont-
real, have crowded through doorways to Kipps' en-
richment, lured by the hitherto unsuspected humours
of the entomological drama. Wealth rises like an
exhalation all over our little planet, and condenses,
or at least some of it does, in the pockets of Kipps.

"It's rum," said Kipps.

He sat in the little kitchen out behind the book-
shop and philosophised and smiled, while Ann gave

474 KIPPSES BK. Ill

Arthur Waddy Kipps his evening tub before the fire.
Kipps was always present at this ceremony unless
customers prevented ; there was something in the mix-
ture of the odours of tobacco, soap and domesticity
that charmed him unspeakably.

"Chuckerdee, o' man," he said, affably, wagging
his pipe at his son, and thought incidentally, after
the manner of all parents, that very few children
could have so straight and clean a body.

"Dadda's got a cheque," said Arthur Waddy
Kipps, emerging for a moment from the towel.

" 'E gets 'old of everything," said Ann. "You
can't say a word "

"Dadda got a cheque," this marvellous child re-
peated.

"Yes, o' man, I got a cheque. And it's got to go
into a bank for you, against when you got to go to
school. See ? So's you'll grow up knowing your way
about a bit."

"Dadda's got a cheque," said the wonder son, and
then gave his mind to making mighty splashes with
his foot. Every time he splashed, laughter overcame
him, and he had to be held up for fear he should
tumble out of the tub in his merriment. Finally he
was towelled to his toe-tips, wrapped up in warm
flannel, and kissed, and carried off to bed by Ann's
cousin and lady help, Emma. And then after Ann
had carried away the bath into the scullery, she re-
turned to find her husband with his pipe extinct and
the cheque still in his hand.

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 475

"Two fousand pounds," he said. "It's dashed
rum. Wot 'ave / done to get two fousand pounds,
Ann?"

"What 'aven't you — not to?" said Ann.

He reflected upon this view of the case.

"I shan't never give up this shop," he said at last.

"We're very 'appy 'ere," said Ann.

"Not if I 'ad fifty fousand pounds."

"No fear," said Ann.

"You got a shop," said Kipps, "and you come
along in a year's time and there it Is. But money —
look 'ow it come and goes ! There's no sense in
money. You may kill yourself trying to get it, and
then it comes when you aren't looking. There's my
'riginal money ! Where is it now ? Gone ! And it's
took young Walshingham with it, and 'e's gone, too.
It's like playing skittles. 'Long comes the ball, right
and left you fly, and there it is rolling away and not
changed a bit. No sense in it ! 'E's gone, and she's
gone — gone off with that chap Revel, that sat with
me at dinner. Merried man ! And Chit'low rich !
Lor' ! — what a fine place that Gerrik Club is, to be
sure, where I 'ad lunch wiv' 'im ! Better'n any 'otel.
Footmen in powder they got — not waiters, Ann —
footmen ! 'E's rich and me rich — in a sort of way.
Don't seem much sense in it, Ann, 'owever
you look at it." He shook his head.

"I know one thing," said Kipps.

•What?"

"I'm going to put It In jest as many different banks

Al6 KIPPSES BK. Ill

as I can. See? Fifty 'ere, fifty there. 'Posit. I'm
not going to 'nvest it — no fear."

"It's only frowing money away," said Ann.

"I'm 'arf a mind to bury some of it under the
shop. Only I expect one 'ud always be coming down
at nights to make sure it was there. ... I don't
seem to trust anyone — not with money." He put the
cheque on the table corner and smiled and tapped his
pipe on the grate with his eyes on that wonderful
document. "S'pose old Bean started orf," he re-
flected. . . . "One thing, 'e is a bit lame."

" 'E wouldn't," said Ann; "not 'im."

"I was only joking like." He stood up, put his
pipe among the candlesticks on the mantel, took up
the cheque and began folding it carefully to put it
back in his pocket-book.

A little bell jangled.

"Shop !" said Kipps. "That's right. Keep a shop
and the shop'll keep you. That's 'ow I look at it,
Ann."

He drove his pocket-book securely into his breast
pocket before he opened the living-room door. . . .

But whether indeed it is the bookshop that keeps
Kipps or whether it is Kipps who keeps the bookshop
is just one of those commercial mysteries people of
my unarithmetical temperament are never able to
solve. They do very well, the dears, anyhow, thank
Heaven !

The bookshop of Kipps is on the left-hand side of
the Hythe High Street coming from Folkestone, be-

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 477

tween the yard of the livery stable and the shop-win-
dow full of old silver and such like things — it is
quite easy to find — and there you may see him for
yourself and speak to him and buy this book of him
if you like. He has it in stock, I know. Very deli-
cately I've seen to that. His name is not Kipps, of
course, you must understand that, but everything else
is exactly as I have told you. You can talk to him
about books, about politics, about going to Boulogne,
about life, and the ups and downs of life. Perhaps
he will quote you Buggins — from whom, by the bye,
one can now buy everything a gentleman's wardrobe
should contain at the little shop in Rendezvous Street,
Folkestone. If you are fortunate to find Kipps in a
good mood he may even let you know how he in-
herited a fortune **once." "Run froo it," hell say
with a not unhappy smile. "Got another afterwards
— speckylating in plays. Needn't keep this shop if
I didn't like. But it's something to do."

Or he may be even more intimate. "I seen some
things," he said to me once. "Raver! Life! Why!
once I — I 'loped! I did — reely!"

(Of course you will not tell Kipps that he is
"Kipps," or that I have put him in this book. He
does not know. And you know, one never knows
how people are going to take that sort of thing. I
am an old and trusted customer now, and for many
amiable reasons I should prefer that things remained
exactly on their present footing.)

478 KIPPSES BK. Ill

\S

One early-closing evening in July they left the
baby to the servant cousin, and Kipps took Ann for a
row on the Hythe canal. It was a glorious evening,
and the sun set in a mighty blaze and left a world
warm, and very still. The twilight came. And there
was the water, shining bright, and the sky a deepen-
mg blue, and the great trees that dipped their boughs
towards the water, exactly as it had been when he
paddled home with Helen, when her eyes had seemed
to him like dusky stars. He had ceased from rowing
and rested on his oars, and suddenly he was touched
by the wonder of life, the strangeness that is a pres-
ence stood again by his side.

Out of the darknesses beneath the shallow, weedy
stream of his being rose a question, a question that
looked up dimly and never reached the surface. It
was the question of the wonder of the beauty, the
purposeless, inconsecutive beauty, that falls so
strangely among the happenings and memories of
life. It never reached the surface of his mind, it
never took to itself substance or form, it looked up
merely as the phantom of a face might look, out of
deep waters, and sank again to nothingness.

"Artie," said Ann.

He woke up and pulled a stroke. "What?" he
said.

"Penny for your thoughts, Artie."

CH. Ill TERMINATIONS 479

He considered.

"I reely don't think I was thinking of anything,"
he said at last with a smile. "No."

He still rested on his oars.

"I expect," he said, "I was thinking jest what a
Rum Go everything is. I expect it was something
like that."

"Queer old Artie!"

"Ain't I ? I don't suppose there ever was a chap
quite like me before."

He reflected for just another minute. "Oo! I
dunno," he said, and roused himself to pull.

THE END

By H. G. WELLS

" Imagination — that is his master quality." — William Archer.

The Food
of the Gods,

and How it Came to Earth

i2mo. $1.50

" A remarkably diverting fantasy, to the spell of which it is
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thing that stimulates mentally as well as entertains."
— Chicago Inter-Ocean.

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the world, and this is one of his most suggestive and satisfac-
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of all, however, it is an entertaining story and a far-seeing
outlook toward the scientific possibilities of the future." — Bos-
ton Transcript.

" 'The Food of the Gods,' like Mr. Wells's other books,
proves that the inventor of the romance of science is always
able to respond t« any call made upon it, however complex.
In the interest of its central idea, no less than in the careful
working out of every part of the subject, ' The Food of the
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thor's many successful novels." — Philadelphia Public Ledger.

Charles Scribncr's Sons, New York

By H. G. WELLS

Twelve Stories
and a Dream

i2mo. $1.50

THE STORIES

FILMER

THE MAGIC SHOP

THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS

THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT

MR. LEDBETTER'S VACATION

MR. SKELMERSDALE IN FAIRYLAND

THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST

JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD

THE NEW ACCELERATOR

THE STOLEN BODY

MR. BRISHER'S TREASURE

MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART

A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON

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that the reader steps when he turns the title-page of ' Twelve
Stories and a Dream ' and finds himself held by the spell of
Mr. Wells's wonderful imagination. . . . Each talc shows Mr.
Wells in a mood that is wholly his own, and they each give
expression to a diverse fancy that displays exceptional literary
skill and ingenuity." — Boston Transcript.

" Mr. Wells's technique is admirable, and one scarcely
recalls a better-handled absurdity than ' The Truth About
Pyecraft.' " — Life.

" All are written with an effectiveness and skill that arc
beyond criticism." — New York Times Review.

'•■ Each of these stories is unique and thoroughly enjoy-
able."— Boston Herald.

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York

By H. G. WELLS

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Mankind
in the Making

X2ino. $1.50 Net (postage, 13 cents)

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terest. ' ' — Outlook.

" He shows a wide knowledge of facts and an admirable
temper from first to last . . . his book is exceedingly interest-
ing and stimulating. ' ' — Baltimore Sun.

" Mr Wells's discussions of vital themes are suggestive, orig-
inal, and plain spoken, and seamed with a racy vigor of style."
— Boston Herald.

" The first tribute this book draws from us is one of sincere
respect. . . . Mr. Wells's duty as a thinker and a writer lay in
the producing of this brilUant revolutionary book."^ — London
Daily News.

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cant and pedantry." — New York Evening Sun.

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worthy of consideration." — Boston Transcript.

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York

By H. G. WELLS

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A Modern Utopia

ILLUSTRATED BY E. J. SULLIVAN
i2mo. $1.50 net. Postage, 12 cents

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the last thirty years, and it is possible and permissible to hope
that some ideas sketched in it will fructify in the futiu-e."

— London Athenaum.

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\vritings." — New York Globe.

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of the future." — The London Tijnes Literary Supplement.

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general reader. His literary imagination, which was born in
him, works on the positive, scientific education to which his
mind was subjected at its most receptive period, and the rare
combination gives to his writings a peculiar distinction." — The
Academy.

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York

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